[LUM#16] Waters and debates
While water is a major global issue, water policies remain largely absent from public debate and are often misunderstood by citizens. What are the rationales behind these policies, and what power dynamics influence them? Explanations with Sylvain Barone and Pierre-Louis Mayaux, political science researchers at G-EAU* and authors of the book Les politiques de l'eau (Water Policies).
With the presidential elections just a few months away, what role do you think water plays in public and political debate in France?
S.B: Arelatively minor one... The only political parties that have made it a real campaign issue are La France Insoumise, from the perspective of the common good, and Europe Ecologie Les Verts, from the perspective of environmental protection.
How do you explain why this issue mobilizes so few citizens?
P.L.M: We saw with the water shortages in Sao Polo in 2015 and in Cape Town in 2017 that the debate immediately arises when drinking water becomes scarce. This is not yet the case in France. Furthermore, water represents a much smaller budget item than energy or telecommunications, even for businesses. But this observation of low politicization must be put into perspective: throughout France, associations are fighting to preserve this resource, and the issue of agricultural water in particular is beginning to mobilize widespread support, as we are seeing with the opposition to water retention basins in the Deux-Sèvres department.
The debate often focuses on drinking water, even though water policies cover a much broader spectrum. Why is that?
S.B: Drinking water and sanitation, known as the small water cycle, is the policy that citizens are most familiar with. The large cycle, or natural cycle, which concerns waterways, natural environments, and groundwater, is less debated. One reason for this is that the small cycle often has a more direct impact on daily life.
But we talk about integrated water resource management (IWRM), don't we?
P.L.M: Yes, water policy in France still follows the IWRM framework that became established internationally in the 1990s. This management approach seeks to reconcile all uses at the level of a large watershed or river. From the outset, this movement was based on the idea that users and businesses should participate in water management and not leave the state solely responsible for water policies.
And how does this user involvement translate?
S.B: France has been a pioneer in this field, setting up basin committees for major river basins as early as the 1960s. These are deliberative bodies that bring together elected officials, government departments, and representatives of water users. They play a major role in shaping water policy. But this type of mechanism, which also exists at the local level, should not obscure the existence of much more discreet negotiation strategies between certain actors.
In recent years, it seems that citizens are demanding more public and less private...
P.L.M: Yes, we are seeing a real movement back toward public management since the pioneering experiment in Grenoble in the early 2000s: Paris, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nice...
Where this has not yet been done, it is on the agenda of green parties and left-wing parties in general. In South America, we have also seen the emergence of several major protest movements against large private water companies, culminating in the symbolic cancellation of Suez's contract in La Paz in 2005 (read Retour sur le retrait de Suez de La Paz-El Alto, P-L. Mayaux).
These multinational water companies—Veolia, Suez, Saur—are French, by the way...
P.L.M: Yes, for rather complex historical reasons, France has extensive experience in private water management, which is quite amusing since France is often associated with the state in the public imagination. However, on a global scale, it is one of the few countries to have developed a very powerful private sector in the small water cycle. When the World Bank refers to the French model, it is the private management model.
Isn't it also because water is a technical issue that we leave it to the private sector?
S.B: First of all, I would say that we must not leave technical issues to technicians! This is a real challenge for democracy. The discourse on the technical nature of water suits certain actors who use it to marginalize elected officials and citizens. To answer your question, technology is not the preserve of the private sector and is not the only argument in this debate. In particular, there is a demand for transparency, with the idea—which should be qualified, incidentally—that public management is inherently less opaque.
Water policy in France is overseen by the Ministry of the Environment. Is France pursuing an environmentalist policy?
P.L.M: Environmental issues are much higher on the agenda in France and Europe than in the rest of the world, where the trend is more toward a supply-side approach to ensure the sustainability of economic activities. We are always looking for more water, further and further away, without questioning consumption. We see mega-dams in China,Ethiopia, North Africa, and the western United States...
Yet here too you sound a note of caution...
S.B: Over the past 30 years, water policies have increasingly been presented as environmental policies. They have had undeniably positive effects on natural environments. Think of all that has been done in terms of sanitation. But the march toward greening remains reversible at any time. The revival of the policy of water retention for agricultural irrigation, pushed by powerful coalitions of actors, illustrates well the balance of power that structures these policies.
What interest do public authorities have in concealing these issues?
S.B: Keeping "black boxes" closed means protecting negotiations and even historic compromises between the state and certain social groups. Opening them up means running the risk of undermining these compromises and perhaps sparking collective mobilization.
* G-EAU (CIRAD – AgroParisTech – IRD – INRAE – Institut Agro)
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