French government breaks blockades as petrol runs short
France's government stepped up efforts Tuesday to break blockades and strikes at refineries that are threatening to paralyse the country just three weeks ahead of the Euro 2016 football tournament.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to clear a blockade at one key refinery in the south of France where activists from the CGT union were protesting against the Socialist government's labour law reforms.
With a fifth of service stations either dry or running low on fuel, President Francois Hollande said a deadlock caused "by a minority" was unacceptable.
At least six out of the eight refineries in France have either stopped operating or reduced output due to strikes and blockades.
The chief executive of Total said the disruption meant the French oil giant would have to "seriously review" its investment plans in France. Five of the refineries affected are run by Total.
"If our colleagues want to take an industrial asset hostage for a cause that is foreign to the company, you have to ask whether that is where we should invest," Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne told reporters Tuesday.
Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls vowed to lift the blockade, which is part of a three-month campaign of strikes against the labour reforms.
Adding to the pressure on the government, hundreds of thousands of football fans will soon travel to France for the month-long European football championships that kick off on June 10.
And the aviation unions on Tuesday threatened to call a three-day strike from June 3 as part of a separate dispute.
Valls called on the CGT union, which is leading the strike action at the refineries, to act responsibly.
"To take consumers, our economy, our industry hostage in this way -- to continue actions aimed at getting the draft law withdrawn -- is not democratic," he said, speaking during a visit to Israel.
At dawn on Tuesday, riot police moved in to lift a blockade of the refinery and fuel depots at Fos-sur-Mer, on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille.
The local police authority said officers had met "significant resistance", with objects thrown, and several police and activists had been hurt.
Valls said: "We will continue to clear the sites, the depots, which are today blocked by this organisation."
But CGT general secretary Philippe Martinez remained defiant.
Most people in France opposed the labour reforms that the union was fighting, he told BFMTV. The prime minister was playing "a dangerous game" trying to set the CGT against the wider population, he said.
Some local authorities in the north and northwest of France have imposed rationing of petrol supplies.
Some motorists in the Paris region have resorted to tracking down fuel tankers and following them to petrol stations.
MEDEF, France's employers' organisation, called on the government to "re-establish the rule of law".
In the northeast meanwhile, motorists were driving over the border to stock up at Belgian stations.
A few minutes' drive from France, in Hertain, Belgium, a 24-year-old lorry driver who gave his name as Amazigh, was grateful for the lifeline.
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