France’s performance vis-a-vis the 12 OECD Principles on Water Governance

ABSTRACT

This paper shows that the evolution of French water governance since the 1960s is globally consistent with the OECD Principles on Water Governance. It covers simultaneously what concerns resources, services and eventually policies that bridge both types, per groups of governance principles. The paper illustrates that, beyond this overall positive assessment, a lot of shortcomings and weaknesses and therefore of potential improvements can be identified. It proposes a preliminary reflection about the impact of governance changes and about indicators needed to measure these impacts.

KEYWORDS:

• Water resource
• water supply and sanitation services
• performance
• governance
• France

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Water Framework Directive of the European Union is a recognition that technology alone will not suffice in solving water issues, and that territorial policies should be developed first.

2. Seine–Normandie, Rhône–Mediterranée–Corse, Adour–Garonne, Loire–Bretagne, Artois–Picardie and Rhin–Meuse.

3. The mutability rule is the obligation to incorporate innovations as a counterpart of the monopoly situation.

4. It may be too that an additional criterion for the good implementation of OECD Principle 2 would be the capacity of the government to elaborate and implement reforms, with more dialogue with partner institutions.

5. With the exception of 500 priority catchments (on a total of around 30,000 for groundwater alone) selected by the state in 2009, later extended to 1000, where the set-up of a remote perimeter is mandatory.

6. Data issued from the last SISPEA report (OFB, 2021).

7. Data issued from République Française (2012).

8. This deficit in the fund is partly due to coverage of disasters which repeat in such a way as not being disasters anymore (!), but also to one hurricane in the Caribbean Islands, and to repeated events of clay soil subsidence due to droughts and subsequent cracks in buildings, which are now eligible for compensation. Climate change might make the system unsustainable.

9. In 1989, Mayor Alain Carignon received funding from Lyonnaise des Eaux as part of the privatization of the city’s water market and was then convicted and jailed for corruption in 1996.

10. In most lease and management contracts, the public partner is responsible for renewing the systems’ infrastructure, while the private partner is only in charge of renewing assets with a lifetime of less than 15 years.

11. The overall target is to reach 30% of French territory in protected areas, including inland and marine, mainland and overseas.

12. France considered 50% of water bodies to be in good ecological status in 2009 and committed to a target of two-thirds in 2015; but the first round of WFD implementation let to the admission that in 2015 only 45% of water bodies were in good ecological status. In 2009, the proportion was rather one-third.

13. In 2015, the law NOTRe, which among others organizes the consolidation of WSS services at the scale of the new intermunicipal boards, made it mandatory for all services serving more than 3500 inhabitants to provide SISPEA with the requested indicators.

14. The report used for this decision estimates that the sole urgent replacement of piping systems would cost €51 billion. Average loss of drinking water was then estimated at 22%.

15. Analyses should start with a double foresight: on water availability under climate change, and on water demands given economic changes and development. Only then should solutions with additional reservoirs and without be compared in terms of cost–benefit (CS du CB RM, 2020).

16. The interpretation of the very weak participation in the meetings of 29 November 1995 and 21 December 1995 is due to the socio-political context in France at this period: important strikes in public transportation prevented many members from reaching the meetings.

17. For example, the project on social utility (or rather usefulness) funded by the Agence de l’eau Rhône Méditerranée and carried by AsCA and Contrechamp consultancies (see https://www.arraa.org/news/l-utilite-sociale-des-projets-de-preservation-et-restauration-des-milieux-aquatiques).

18. Almost nobody considers that the waterboards in both areas are inefficient and should be replaced by just the polluter-pays principle and no return of money to fund mutual investments.