They were stormed for days. With their capped prices, the service stations of the multinational TotalEnergies have attracted tens of thousands of motorists looking for slightly cheaper fuel. But this Friday, some had to make their way on the holiday route, facing closed pumps. Fuel shortage? Not even. This Friday, a strike paralyzed several stations in the Argedis network, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies.
According to the CGT, employees of around twenty establishments are mobilizing to demand assistance in paying for fuel for employees. The group’s management reported for its part that “eight stations” were affected by this movement, or 4% of the sites in this network. The Mont-Saint-Michel station located along the A84 between Rennes and Caen was paralyzed.
Argedis manages around 180 of the group’s 3,300 stations in France, mainly on motorways. The strikers are demanding aid for employees, whose fuel budget “now reaches 400 euros per month, for a net salary of 1,600 euros”, which creates a “financially untenable” situation. Management proposed a “fuel bonus” of between 15 and 40 euros per month, depending on the journey made by employees between their home and their place of work. “Crumbs”, protests the CGT, which called, on the eve of vacation departures in Ile-de-France, for the “blocking” of the stations of the French oil and gas giant.
Take the Total card for a discount
The group, which says it remains “open to dialogue”, has also encouraged employees to take a Total card, which allows them to benefit from a reduction of 8 cents per liter compared to the prices displayed, management indicated. “They are the shoemakers with the worst shoes, that is to say that even Total employees have no help to deal with this explosion in the price of fuel,” reacted the general secretary of the CGT, Sophie Binet, Friday on France 2, asking the government to index salaries to prices.
Last year, TotalEnergies made a profit of 13 billion euros, down 17%.
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