Pensions: disruptions in transport, energy, waste collection in Paris

Disruptions in transport

Traffic should improve at the SNCF, but it will remain disrupted with 2 out of 3 TGVs and still difficulties in Ile-de-France, according to management.

The rate of strikers stood at 6% on Thursday morning with disparities between the trades: 36% among drivers, 16% among controllers, 11% among switchers, 5% among material, equipment and commercial agents, according to a union source.

The RATP expects normal traffic for the metros, buses and trams, but the service will remain disrupted on lines A and B of the RER.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC) has asked airlines to cancel 20% of their flights at Paris-Orly, as on Wednesday, due to a strike by air traffic controllers.

"Despite these preventative measures, disruptions and delays are nonetheless to be expected," she added.

Refineries on strike, Feyzin flinches

Most French refineries were still on strike on Thursday, this one being "renewed at TotalEnergies at the La Mède refinery, in Donges and at the Flandres depot", Eric Sellini, CGT coordinator for the group, told AFP. .

But the strikers are reluctant to shut down the sites completely, the stocks being almost full, because the operation is technically delicate and the restart process long.

So much so that some fuel shipments have partially resumed in recent days at the Normandy refinery. Thursday, they "will undoubtedly be limited but will continue to be maintained", according to Mr. Sellini.

If the strike is very well attended in Donges and Flandres with respectively 80% and 100% of strikers on the morning shift, the mobilization faltered on the other hand at the Feyzin refinery, with "many strikers on the petrochemical side but very few on the refining side" , indicated the union representative, who “doubts their ability to maintain the stopped shipments”.

"Ultimatum" in the gas

The CGT Energie on Wednesday issued an "ultimatum" to Storengy, a subsidiary of Engie, for it to implement a significant and rare drop in pressure in the gas networks, otherwise the strikers will take care of it, which could deprive power plants and certain industrial customers of gas.

The CGT subsequently indicated that this request had been the subject of an end of inadmissibility from the management.

The staff of the eleven Storengy storage sites were to decide Thursday morning on the terms of the continuation of the movement.

"Some of the group's sites are indeed experiencing operational disruptions, with no impact at this stage on the security of supply," Engie told AFP on Wednesday evening.

Sharp drops in production and cuts in electricity

The EDF strikers still proceeded Thursday morning to sharp cuts in production.

CGT Energie has claimed the figure of 17.000 MW of load reduction, the equivalent of some 12 to 17 nuclear reactors. "At 08 a.m., the drop in load on all the means of production was 00 MW", indicated for its part the management of EDF, a large part of which is in hydroelectric power stations.

“Elected officials must take their responsibilities and come to their senses on a subject that today does not have a consensus among citizens,” Julien Lambert, federal secretary of the FNME-CGT, told AFP.

French nuclear reactors produce between 900 and 1.450 MW of electricity.

Cuts were claimed by the CGT: 32.000 households impacted in the Ardennes in the cities of Sedan, Rethel and Vouziers, from 6:00 a.m., according to the Enedis distributors. Power was restored at 11:30 a.m.

Targeted cuts had been undertaken on Wednesday, like the Vendée home of the head of senators LR Bruno Retailleau or the presidential residence of Fort de Brégançon in the Var the previous night.

In Brittany, near the Rance tidal power plant, near Saint-Malo, around 200 to 300 people - electricians, hospital workers, teachers - set up a filter barrier to disrupt road traffic, between two bridge lifts mobile where some 30.000 cars pass through every day, according to Amélie Henri, national secretary CFE-Energie at EDF.

Mountains of trash cans in Paris, unblocking of a depot by the police

According to the town hall of Paris, 7.600 tons of waste cluttered the sidewalks of the capital on Wednesday morning.

PS mayor Anne Hidalgo refused to requisition garbage collectors to limit the effects of their strike, leaving the ball in the government's court. Late Wednesday evening, Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez informed her of his decision to requisition officers to clear the city's trash cans.

In addition, the police released Thursday in Vitry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne) a depot managed by Pizzorno Environnement, which collects garbage from the 15th arrondissement of Paris in particular. This follows a decision by the Créteil court seized by the company.

"Dead Ports"

The ports of Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, but also those of Brest and Le Havre, were stopped on Thursday as part of the "dead ports" day launched by the CGT, according to the unions and the prefectures.

In Brest, around fifty strikers, port workers and dockworkers, were on site, AFP noted. Three containers blocked the access route to the port.

In Le Havre, access to port terminals had been blocked since 6 a.m. by trucks, cranes, tire and pallet fires, according to the CGT federation of ports and docks (FNPD). Not a single oil tanker, not a container ship enters or leaves, the same for ferries and cruise ships, according to AFP.

Impeded river navigation

River navigation on the Rhine is slowed down due to a movement of CGT employees at the Ottmarsheim lock, near Mulhouse, Philippe Charpentier, union representative at EDF Hydro Est, told AFP on Wednesday evening.

“We also have the possibility of intervening at night on the electricity network of the power station” adjoining the lock, he added, saying that he was waiting for “instructions” depending on the situation in Parliament on Thursday.