TotalEnergies fuel stations and French refinery strike set for Thursday despite €1,000 bonus

Staff at TotalEnergies refineries and some service stations across France are set to strike this Thursday (October 8), as the CGT union maintains its walkout despite the group offering employees a €1,000 ‘advance’.

TotalEnergies has offered all its staff in France an advance of €1,000 rather than waiting for the annual pay negotiations. 

The oil and gas group told employees in an internal message that the payment was a "concrete signal" that it recognises their contribution to the company's success.

It comes as a bid to ease work-place tensions. The CGT union, one of the leading unions of the company, wants more hiring, including of temporary workers in the refineries, and the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones. It says teams are stretched, with safety implications, and points to the use of agency as well as fixed-term staff.

It is demanding a €200 rise for everyone and a group-wide minimum basic salary of 1.2 times the minimum wage (SMIC), which is currently €1,867 per month before deductions.

The CGT union says it will still strike at all the group's sites this Thursday (October 8), including refineries and some service stations.

Union: bonus is 'not working'

According to Le Monde, which has seen the internal message, the bonus is for 2026 and is being paid immediately rather than waiting for the annual pay negotiations, which are scheduled for December. 

The French media said chief executive Patrick Pouyanné had promised such a gesture in May at a European works council meeting. It will also go to staff at wholly owned subsidiaries such as Argedis, which runs around 180 TotalEnergies service stations, mostly on motorways.

CGT’s group coordinator, Eric Sellini, said the management's attempt to defuse the dispute is "not working" and that everyone should down tools from the first morning shift. He had earlier described the move as "crude manipulation", according to CNews, and told Le Monde it was a transparent ploy.

Mr Sellini said management feared things would spiral given what he called an "explosive situation" in the country, and that tensions would rise further if refinery and service station workers joined in. A bonus, he said, offers no lasting solution when shareholder dividends are certain to rise.

The union is calling for stoppages at the group's refineries, at Argedis stations and at Hutchinson, its rubber and seals subsidiary.

CFE-CGC, the other leading union at the company, took a more measured line. Its coordinator, Dominique Convert, said it had asked management for a gesture before the end of the year to help staff cope with high fuel prices, and that "anything extra is welcome". He declined to link the payment to the CGT's strike call and said the real test would be the negotiations.

What could happen on Thursday

Mr Sellini said the 24-hour action could mean fuel shipments from refineries being blocked or slowed, depending on how many staff take part and on local decisions. Some service stations may also be blocked.

Fuel supplies are already tight, although the authorities say the situation is under control. A recent count found 1,324 of France's 9,825 service stations, or 13.5%, were out of at least one fuel.

Grand Est has been among the worst hit, partly because the Rhine river is so low after the summer heatwaves that only limited supplies of fuel can be moved by barge. Some stations have also run dry in Gironde, Haute-Garonne and Bouches-du-Rhône.

The group has capped petrol and diesel prices at its own French stations in response to the increase in prices linked to the war in the Middle East.

Echoes of 2022 and record profits

The strike calls back memories of autumn 2022, when an internal pay dispute grew within weeks into a national fuel crisis. Several weeks of strikes caused shortages and some station closures, and the government ordered some workers back to work. 

The multinational ultimately conceded significant pay rises. The backdrop was similar: high energy prices, this time because of the war in Ukraine, and exceptional profits for the group.

TotalEnergies' net profit reached $11.2 billion (about €10 billion) in the first half of 2026, a rise of around 72% from a year earlier.

At the group's annual investor day in New York on Monday September 28, Mr Pouyanné said TotalEnergies' Europe's refineries were all running at full tilt and were like "gold mines". He also announced a dividend rise of more than 5% a year until 2030.

The last annual pay talks, for the 14,000 employees covered by the group's common social base (out of 35,000 including subsidiaries), ended in January in disagreement between the CFE-CGC and CGT, the company's two main unions, and management.

Read also: Fuel prices in France rise: latest as of October 5, 2026