The issue is that the refineries are on strike. But as they were saying last night on one of the television talk shows, there are refineries all over Europe. There is nothing to say that the petroleum companies couldn't simply order fuel shipped in from the UK or the Netherlands or some other country that isn't on strike - and there is some talk about tapping the "strategic reserves" of fuel that the government holds.

For the moment, the strikers seem to be trying to promote the notion that fuel supplies will get short within a week or so. There are impressive lines at some of the petrol stations (mostly the ones known to have the cheapest prices) and a few report being out of one sort of fuel or another (usually diesel).

Corsica had problems last week because of a port strike in Marseille, but they shipped diesel in from somewhere else.

Anyhow, welcome to Life in France.
Cheers,
Bev