The blockades of the biorefinery of La Mède, near Marseille, and of the oil terminals of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille-Fos, operated by Fluxel, were lifted on Friday, according to union sources and the management of TotalEnergies.
La Mède produces small volumes of biodiesel and other biofuels. TotalEnergies has three conventional refineries elsewhere in the country, at Gonfreville (Seine-Maritime), Donges (Loire-Atlantique) and Feyzin (Rhône). Until Friday, only the third one was in service. “The morning shift on the La Mède platform voted non-striker, so the maneuvers in preparation for the restart of the refinery can resume, as well as fuel shipments,” a union source told AFP.
The strike “was lifted this morning”, confirmed to AFP Fabien Cros, delegate and spokesman CGT site. But even if the renewable strike ends at the biorefinery of TotalEnergies La Mède, “it does not mean that we will not continue in one form or another,” he continued, considering that “the motivation of employees” was not questioned in the face of “a government until the end and radical.
The management stressed that the strike was lifted at 04:00 in the morning, allowing the “resumption of shipments and the launch of the start of the facilities of the biorefinery. For production activities, “we are not sure we will be able to restart the facilities this week without endangering the staff”, warned Mr. Cros, alerting to the very degraded state of the production units.
However, he believes that the depository business should be able to resume more quickly. At Fluxel, which manages the oil terminals of the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille-Fos, “the movement was lifted yesterday (Thursday) evening,” according to the same union source, which announced the end of the movement at La Mède. A “partial resumption of activities has been voted”, which will be effective within 48 hours, confirmed to AFP Pascal Galéoté, CGT representative of Fluxel. But “we will decide on new modalities of action in the coming days,” he added, noting that 73 ships were still waiting in the harbor of Fos-sur-Mer to be able to unload crude oil, refined products (diesel, gasoline) or chemicals. “We are adapting our strategy” because “the objective is to last over time,” Galéoté continued.
“There may still be calls for demonstrations, but we are going to a lifting of the movement of strike, there is a share of fatalism and discouragement in the face of government inflexibility, not acceptance but a lot of resentment and bitterness that will leave traces, “commented for his part the union source who announced the end of the movement at La Mède and Fluxel.
At the Donges refinery, which has been shut down for several weeks for technical reasons, the CFDT also announced on Friday the suspension of its strike, which could allow shipments from the depots to resume. According to the CFDT, the suspension of the movement was also decided by the CGT, which has a majority on this site.
