The walkouts over wage increases as Europe's cost-of-living crisis deepens have caused thousands of fuel stations to run dry. Perreira, who is semi-retired, says he can spend up to two hours at a time waiting to get to the fuel pump.

On a bad day, he may only fill the tanks of three of four trucks.

"I've never known anything like it in the 40 years I've been driving trucks," Perreira told Reuters earlier this week as he waited to refill.

Workers at TotalEnergies' Donges refinery voted to end their strike on Wednesday. However, the industrial action continues at four other sites after wage talks between the hardleft CGT union TotalEnergies broke down last week.

An end to similar strikes at ExxonMobil and government back-to-work orders for a small number of TotalEnergies employees has helped get low volumes of refined products moving. But one in five fuel stations face supply difficulties, with the number higher in the Paris region.

Buoyed by the industrial unrest spreading to the nuclear sector and beyond, the CGT at some sites are digging in.

"Everyone is struggling," Pereira continued. "I have trouble filling my car's tank so I can get to work."

Economists say the strikes to date will have had little impact on economic output.

"Any loss of activity due to such strikes tends to have a small impact on growth and is generally offset by a catch-up effect in the following quarter," said Sylvain Bersinger at economic consultancy Asteres.

Even so, for Perreira's boss Imen Mehenni, whose company F.D.E Transports holds accounts with firms such as DHL, Fedex and Chronopost, the strikes mean a logistical headache and mounting costs.

Working hour rules mean that hours spent in a queue are hours a trucker cannot spend on the road, forcing Mehenni to take on freelance drivers. Drivers are running out of diesel as they search for open fuel stations.

Delays have resulted in a small number of contracts being cancelled, she said, speaking at her office in Mitry-Mory, east of Paris.

"We're not managing to honour contracts and customers are unhappy," she said.

The strikes had cost her firm "tens of thousands of euros", Mehenni said, piling more pain on top of high fuel prices

"We're the ones paying the consequence for all this," she continued. "The government...should offer us some help."

"We are fighting every day to remain afloat... we have hundreds of families depending on us and we are fighting to preserve the jobs of the workers we employ."

(Reporting by Caroline Pailliez; Editing by Richard Lough)

By Caroline Pailliez