Protests over labour reforms considered “too pro-business” continue, forcing France to tap into emergency fuel reserves.
Nuclear power station workers in France have voted to join the gathering protests against labour law reforms that have forced the country to dip into strategic fuel reserves due to refinery blockades.
With football fans due to flood into France in two weeks for the Euro 2016 championships, pressure is piling on the government as queues at petrol stations lengthen by the day.
Strikes and protests being held around France on Thursday are against a labour bill that extends the work week and makes layoffs easier.
After hardline CGT union workers joined the rolling nationwide strike on Wednesday, French nuclear power capacity was cut by at least four gigawatts (GW) on Thursday, grid operator RTE showed on its website.
At least nine nuclear reactors reported unplanned outages after the workers’ vote on Wednesday evening, according to RTE’s website.
The strike has also paralysed French businesses.
Activists ignore warning
Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned the CGT union leading the disruption at refineries and fuel depots that it “does not make the law in France”.
But union activists remained defiant, burning tires and blocking a major bridge on the northern French coast.
“If we have to carry on, then we will,” Franck Barbay, CGT union representative, told Al Jazeera.
“We are not pleased to have lose money but if it is to see this law overturned, then we’d have done what was right.”
Demonstrators gathered early on Thursday morning at a central square in the port town of Harfleur, setting off fireworks and air horns.
Activists were unapologetic about the disruption.
“We have to hit where it hurts,” said union official Gilles Guyomard. “And where it hurts is the bosses’ wallets.”
The activists then went to the two-kilometre-long Pont de Normandie, which bridges the Seine River at Le Havre, setting a pile of tires alight and blocking toll booths.
The labour reforms they are protesting are designed to address France’s famously rigid labour market by making it easier to hire and fire workers.
Reforms too ‘pro-business’
Opponents say the changes are too pro-business and will do little to reduce France’s jobless rate of around 10 percent.
The country has nearly four months of fuel reserves and President Francois Hollande told a cabinet meeting that “everything will be done to ensure the French people and the economy is supplied”.
But with five of France’s eight refineries having either halted or slowed production, shortages are becoming acute in many regions – and spreading to Paris.
Viviane, a 66-year-old pensioner queuing to fill up her car in Allier, central France, said the situation reminded her of May 1968, when students and workers paralysed the country for two weeks in protest at president Charles de Gaulle’s government.
“I remember May ’68 and I can tell you the shortages were no joke so I am taking precautions,” she told the AFP news agency.
Worried drivers were using online apps to find petrol stations that still had fuel, with many limiting drivers to just 20 litres (five gallons) each.
The Ufip oil industry federation confirmed that with around a third of the country’s 12,000 petrol stations running dry, it had begun using strategic reserves.
But in some rare good news for Hollande on Wednesday, figures showed a 0.6 percent dip in unemployment in April – the first time the jobless roll has shrunk for two consecutive months in the past five years.
Labour Minister Myriam El Khomri said the drop was due to government incentives to boost hiring.
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