A collision between the French government and the country’s largest union federation threatens to paralyse the country two weeks before the Euro 2016 football championship, reports The Independent.
One quarter of all French petrol stations were closed or running short of fuel after the militant CGT union federation blockaded refineries and depots in a dispute over reforms of employment law.
After the government sent in riot police to clear pickets from a large refinery near Marseille, the union federation retaliated by calling for strikes in all eight of the country’s refineries.
The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) – the largest and oldest of the eight multi-industry trades union federations in France – has also called for an open-ended strike on the Paris Metro from next Thursday and a strike on the French railways from next Thursday. CGT has also called for a one-day strike in power stations on Thursday. CGT also called a strike by air traffic controllers for three days the weekend after next, the weekend before the football tournament begins.
Motorists in large parts of the country, especially in Paris, the west and the north, had to queue or drive for many miles to find petrol. In one typical small town in Normandy, Thury-Harcourt, both petrol stations were dry this morning, resupplied during the day, but dry again by the evening.
The government blamed the shortages on panic buying by motorists and said that – despite the strikes and blockages – normal supplies of fuel were available.