Fuel Strikes in France

tripled

A fuel strike in France is has resulted in many petrol stations closing or rationing fuel, although most are still open. However, the North West of France is the worst affected area, so may impact British holiday makers, especially with the bank holiday coming up.

Usually I arrive in France running on fumes, ready to dive into the nearest supermarket for cheap French diesel. May I suggest that likeminded forumites consider filling up before leaving the UK, as I might have to do next week, and not letting it run too low before looking for an open petrol station? I'm not sure what the travel insurance position would be on running out of fuel and being unable to get back to the port.

On the bright side, at least there should be less traffic if the UK strikes in 2000 are anything to go by.

peachyprice

Blimey. Are they at least keeping the (expensive) ones on the auto routes open?

We're heading down to Reims next weekend, at least a tank there and a tank back.

mgdavid

shortages are everywhere but particularly in northwest (Pas de Calais) and Normandy, Brittany. No preference on deliveries to autoroute services so they are short or out completely.
Either brim the tank in UK before crossing (ignoring the wallet pain) or after Calais go north for 30 minutes and fill up in Belgium. There are no shortages once across the border.

isplumm

Hi

We are down in the Loire Valley - between Angers / Le Mans / Tours - we are being limited to 20/30 euros per fill - I suspect everything will run out soon!

Mark

tripled

isplumm wrote: »

Hi

We are down in the Loire Valley - between Angers / Le Mans / Tours - we are being limited to 20/30 euros per fill - I suspect everything will run out soon!

Mark

I'll be coming straight through that area later this week, from Caen towards La Rochelle, then back to Caen, turning round (without getting on the boat) to go back down to La Rochelle again. Never mind coming back the following week.

Meanwhile, the AA are reporting they are rescuing stranded tourists who are out of fuel and leaving the car in "a place of safety" until supplies return to normal.

Could be interesting!

Yolina

Just as an aside, there have been a lot of strikes in France recently, with many more to come. This is due to a new labour law that Hollande decided to force through several weeks ago, without it being discussed in parliament. He has managed to p*ss pretty much everybody off with that one. Many of those strikes won't be noticed by tourists (schools or tax offices), but some will (transport).

There's also some 'general strike' days floating about
Knowing my countrymen, I don't expect things to get better anytime soon so good luck to anyone going over :rotfl:

missbiggles1

Interactive map where you can check which petrol stations have shortages or rationing.

http://delaware.ripplemotion.fr/

More shortages of diesel than petrol.

RADDERS

We are in Antibes and some petrol stations had run out this lunch time when we went to fill up. We found one eventually but there was a queue.

PeteDoff

No problem filling up fully with petrol in Narbonne this morning and just up the road with GPL (LPG). So that's about 110 litres of fuel in total on board - (Not TOTAL the company) the Geant Supermarket filling station closed though when I arrived.

Smallish queues at most filling stations, can't say what will happen tomorrow of course but plenty of places still getting deliveries here
today.

tripled

My understanding is that deliveries are still getting through as normal at the moment, but because of the panic, as soon as a tanker refills a station, it's beseiged and rapidly empties again. The AA are still saying it should be ok away from the ports, but a family member who drove down to Airvault yesterday reported all bar one station they passed being out of diesel (a number still had petrol though).

If only my car took petrol! Or I still had my old Espace which would take 50:50 Veg oil and diesel mixed

mgdavid

An acquaintance came back from Pau yesterday, no problem down south but as soon as they got as far up as Le Mans everywhere had run out.

It could well get worse as I heard all 8 of France's refineries are now fully picketed.