PARIS (Reuters) – France’s CGT union, on the core of a weeks-long strike at refineries and a few petrol depots of oil major TotalEnergies, walked away from wage talks Thursday night, slashing hopes the standoff, which has sapped petrol stations and strained the country’s nerves, would end.
“We’ve seen a masquerade… the offers on the table are clearly insufficient”, a CGT representative Alexis Antonioli told journalists after his union left the talks.
A couple of hours later, the more moderate CFDT and CFE-CGC unions representing a majority of staff found a take care of TotalEnergies which, if approved by union members, would mean a 7% pay rise.
“This does not change anything for the mindset of the striking staff”, said Antonioli when asked if a wage deal without the CGT, much like the one reached recently at ExxonMobil’s Esso France unit, could decelerate the movement.
TotalEnergies on Thursday offered to carry wage talks despite the continued strikes, lower than a day after President Emmanuel Macron’s government told the group, which has earned bumper profits as energy prices have spiralled higher, to pay its staff more.
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(Reporting by Jean Terzian and Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)
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