French Fuel Shortage Stalls Lawnmowers and Halts England’s Euro 2016 Training Pitch Prep

Forget last minute squad shake ups and unexpected injuries. In the lead up to Euro 2016, it was nationwide French strikes that almost derailed England’s chances at becoming tournament champions. In the wake of industrial action strikes, the finishing touches on the team’s Chantilly training ground were set back two days due to a lack of petrol to power lawnmowers and tractors.

The nationwide strikes serve as a major blow in the lead up to Euro 2016, with French unions furious at proposed labour reforms that will weaken their influence. In protest unions have blockaded six of the nation’s eight petrol refineries for the past two weeks, an act that saw almost half of French fuel stations running on empty at the peak of the strikes.

On-site sources reveal diesel dilemma

Telegraph Sport was quick to report on the chaos, deploying in-house reporters to visit the team training ground where Roy Hodgson and his gents are set to kick off practice sessions.

“We’ve had to cope with the weather and the fuel strike. When the weather’s been good, we had no diesel, when the weather was bad we’ve had diesel (but couldn’t operate the machines due to the rain),” commented a source.

Rain, terrorism and industrial action

With England set to take on Russia in a Saturday match in Marseille, on-site groundsmen are working tirelessly to finish the job. After all, the likes of Wayne Rooney and Harry Kane are used to nothing less than pitch perfection. As well as dealing with lawnmowers that refuse to growl, organisers at England’s Chantilly HQ have had to deal with the onslaught of wild weather, when rainstorms saw the Seine rise to its highest levels in 35 years. Not to mention the ever present threat of a terror attack that has authorities on high alert.

“The strikes have held us back with operations as we couldn’t fuel the machines up for the jobs we needed to do. Some tractors take up to 40 to 50 litres of diesel. We needed to put some sand on the pitch last week, which held us up a day or two, and at that time, the weather was actually really good so it was frustrating,” comments another stadium source.

As well as sparking fuel shortages, the mass scale boycott of French petrol refineries puts the nation’s petrochemicals industry at risk. For more information on this arena, ‘The Indispensable Analytical Tool in Petrochemical Laboratories for Quantitative Trace Element Analysis’ looks at how XRF enables the generation of accurate and precise information, in the most efficient way possible.