French Police Decide Who Gets To Buy Gas

The rise of authoritarianism in Europe continues.

Thanks to absolutely shortsighted energy management, European countries are facing a catastrophic energy crisis. While we’ve covered how the cost of electricity is skyrocketing in Germany and other countries along with natural gas, there’s also widespread fuel shortages. To help manage the situation in France, a report from France 24 shows police have begun checking fuel tank levels before letting drivers access pumps.

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You can place some of the blame on the Ukraine War, but whose idea was it to become so dependent on Russia for petroleum, etc.? Compounding the problem is a strike among refinery workers, turning the situation from bad to worse. That’s why the government has stepped in.

To get fuel, a person must first have a “priority occupation.” This sounds eerily similar to the covid lockdowns and only “essential workers” being allowed to put food on the table in some areas. It’s scary when governments get to step in and decide which jobs are of a higher priority than others because that’s crossing a line into totalitarian control.

France 24 says citizens are understanding of why priority vehicles need fuel. It’s understandable why police, fire, and medical response units need to have priority, but in the video report we see plenty of civilian cars in the line. Making the call over who deserves fuel and who doesn’t seems problematic, but we also get the difficulty of the situation.

Even worse, just because the police authorize someone to get fuel doesn’t mean they’ll actually receive any. One “care worker” was show on video trying to fuel up, only to find the station was bone dry. Considering the French have been gun-ho on electric cars, this just shows trying to get away from ICE through government mandates will leave entire economies reeling, just like what’s going on in France. It looks like many are losing their cool at the pumps as scarcity is pushing everyone over the edge.