BBC News with Stewart Macintosh.

Workers at two French oil refineries have voted to end their strike against government plans to raise the state pension age. Employees are also returning to work at a third refinery shut down in a separate dispute. However, nine other refineries are still on strike. Here’s Hugh Schofield.

At two refineries owned by Esso, one in the north and one in the south, staffs have chosen to go back to work. A third refinery in the east, which was shut in a totally separate dispute, is also reopening. Further good news for President Sarkozy is that all of the country’s 200 or so fuel supply depots are also now cleared of pickets and operating normally. It means that the threat of the country grinding to a hole for lack of oil has more or less disappeared.