CEPEL

Water Authority

Issues

Water resources have been managed and shared in a wide variety of ways depending on the era, location, scale, and social and cultural systems involved. Generally speaking, all of these water governance models have affirmed and protected the public or common good nature of water. The history of private management has ancient roots in France. As early as the 19th century, large groups were able to present themselves as long-term auxiliaries to public authorities, offering them concessions at opportune moments to preserve their interests (Defeuilley, 2017). The Compagnie Générale des Eaux was created by imperial decree of Napoleon III on December 14, 1853, with the city of Lyon committing to purchase water (10,000 m³) at conditions set in advance (17 francs per m³), non-revisable for 20 years. This was the first water concession in history.

Added to this were institutional fragmentation and weak municipal resources, which made the "rationalizing" support of large private groups very valuable to elected officials (Pezon, 2002). A ruling by the Council of State supports this approach by providing protection to concessionaires against certain risks (theory of the Prince, theory of unpredictability, etc.). Finally, it is also worth noting the protective and stabilizing role played by the Ministry of the Interior, which drafted standard contracts and participated in the evolution of concessions into lease contracts, in which investments are financed by the local authority (Lorrain, 2008).

Since then, the private water management model has become dominant. In France, the proportion of public service delegation is almost the reverse of the rest of the world: nearly 80% of water supply is managed by Suez, Veolia, and Saur, and since the late 1980s, there has been a general consensus that private management of all assets is much better than public management, which is considered bureaucratic and inefficient.

This vision of governance has been in crisis since the 2000s, coming up against a movement advocating the remunicipalization of water. This has been demonstrated in many cities in France and in most European cities, emphasizing the fact that public management that involves citizens, politicians, and employees of the Régie in the decision-making process can enable social and sustainable management that protects this natural resource (Le Strat Anne., 2010).

In 2014, the report by the Observatory of Public Water and Sanitation Services (SISPEA) indicated that 69% of public drinking water services are directly managed, covering a population of nearly 25 million inhabitants, or 39% of the French population. Services managed by delegated operators, on the other hand, represent 31% of services but cover nearly 61% of the population, or approximately 41 million inhabitants.

Even though, ideologically speaking, public management is a left-wing marker, the choice of management model is not based on political affiliation. In other words, decision-makers do not opt for public management when they are politically left-wing and private management when they are right-wing, as this is not systematically the case (Le Bart Christian, Pasquier Romain, and Arnaud Lionel, 2007). The example of Montpellier confirms this with the break that took place in 1989, when Georges Frêche, the socialist mayor of Montpellier, decided to delegate the management of water and sanitation, which had until then been the responsibility of a municipal authority, to Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE, a private company that has since become Veolia) (Touly Jean-Luc, Lenglet Roger, 2005). In a practice that was common at the time but has been banned since 1995, Veolia paid an entry fee of 250 million francs to the city of Montpellier in order to obtain the contract in 1989. This payment, which was supposedly used to finance the Corum, was in fact a loan with an interest rate of 7.5% per annum.

Seven public service delegation contracts (PSDs) of the leasehold type, covering the production and distribution of drinking water and sanitation services, have been established for a period of 25 years.
Knowing that the DSP contracts for thirteen municipalities were due to expire between October 30 and December 31, 2014, in November 2012, the Montpellier Urban Community launched a major consultation process called "What water for tomorrow?" to help it decide whether to continue with private management or return to public management. This "sham consultation" was denounced in Midi Libre on March 25, 2013, by the association Eau Secours 34, whose proposal to organize a local referendum had not been accepted. Instead, the association launched a major campaign between 2013 and 2014, via a petition, collecting 10,000 signatures in favor of public water management.

Under the chairmanship of Jean-Pierre Moure, on July 25, 2013, Louis Pouget, Vice-President of the Montpellier Urban Community, delegate for Water and Sanitation, presented the various scenarios selected as part of this consultation process:

  • Scenario A. No division, the entire water service under public management, municipal authority, or SPL.
  • Scenario B. No division, delegated management of the entire water service entrusted to a single operator;
  • Scenario C. 1 "production" perimeter (Lez, Arago, drilling, water purchases), public management (municipal authority or SPL).

1 "distribution and user relations" area: delegated management.
Scenario D. 1 "production" area (Lez, Arago, drilling, water purchases), public management (municipal or SPL)
1 "distribution" area: delegated management.
1 "user management" area: public management (municipal authority or SPL).

The council votes by a majority (16 against, 7 abstentions, 1 not participating in the vote) in favor of scenario B selected by the executive, a delegation of the entire drinking water and raw water service through a single lease contract. This means a new 7-year public service delegation contract for drinking water, starting on January 1, 2015, and running until 2021.

Among the 16 elected officials who voted against renewing this public service delegation agreement was René Revol, mayor of Grabels since 2008, former member of the Socialist Party, and activist with the Left Party. This vote is consistent with the mayor's political career, as he made the return to public water management a commitment in his 2014 municipal election platform in Grabels. For the Montpellier municipal elections, René Revol is supporting the Left Party candidate, Muriel Ressiguier, whose program also includes a commitment to returning water services to public management. Having failed to qualify for the second round of the Montpellier elections, the Left Party has refused to merge with Jean-Pierre Moure's PS/EELV list or with Philippe Saurel's citizen list between the two rounds.

Like René Revol, Philippe Saurel voted against renewing the Public Service Delegation during the metropolitan council meeting on July 25, 2013. But on May 6, 2013, when a motion was tabled in the Montpellier City Council by EELV and Front de Gauche elected officials calling for the return of water and sanitation services to public management, only the two groups voted in favor. The elected representatives of the PS majority and those of the right voted against it. Philippe Saurel, then deputy mayor in charge of culture and heritage, belonging to the PS majority, abstained!

A member of the Socialist Party since 1994, Philippe Saurel announced in 2010 his intention to run in the 2014 municipal elections. He refused to participate in the primary organized by the PS to select its candidate. Because he maintained his candidacy, which was considered dissident by the PS, he was expelled from the party on January 7, 2014. Philippe Saurel then ran as an independent candidate and surprised everyone by also making the return of water to public management a campaign pledge. The list he headed won in Montpellier. On October 30, 2014, the metropolitan council he chairs declared "No further action on the private drinking water concession contract for reasons of public interest."

The question of choosing management methods from ideological, political, technical, economic, environmental, and other perspectives has been the subject of numerous studies, which tend to show that decision-makers' choices were made solely on the basis of purely universalist considerations. We attempt to transcend this view using the example of Montpellier in 2014, taking an approach that has previously been largely overlooked in public policy analysis. To explain the process that led to the return of water services to public management in Montpellier, we draw on the politicization phenomena that surrounded it, because the interest lies in the fact that there is not only a plurality of actors but also other potentially influential elements (interest, legitimacy, affect) and a plurality of levels (local, national, or international actors?). Analysis in terms of agenda, for example, allows us to understand, on the one hand, the logic behind the prioritization of issues addressed by public authorities and, on the other hand, how issues are constructed as public problems, calling for responses in terms of public action (Sheppard Elisabeth, 2010). It takes into account the dynamics of collective mobilization, media coverage, and politicization, and leads to broadening the spectrum of public policy actors to include social movements, the media, and elected officials (Hassenteufel Patrick, 2010).

On this basis, the main research question can be stated as follows:

What were the contexts (set of prior circumstances) and situations (set of subsequent circumstances) that made the return to public water management possible in Montpellier in 2014?

Based on these elements, the following sub-questions may be considered:

  • How did the return of water to public management, which had been outside the political sphere for 20 years (1989-2009), translate into a political decision in 2014?
  • Why has the issue of water management in Montpellier become a key topic in the 2014 municipal election agenda, i.e., one of the priority issues that candidates must address?
  • Why are issues such as insecurity, taxation, and mobility, which feature in the campaign, failing to win his heart?
  • What is the consensus and what is controversial throughout this pre- and post-election period?

The subject will be analyzed in depth in terms of its historical context and financial, technical, organizational, and political constraints. It will also be examined comparatively within the institution by looking at other changes of this type. "One can only explain by comparing," according to the precept stated by Durkheim in the opening pages of Suicide. A comparison with another empirical case, namely the extension of public water management to sanitation for the 31 municipalities of the Montpellier Metropolis, which was approved on December 14, 2021, during the community council meeting, will be a valuable contribution to the evaluation in highlighting differences, questions, and even similarities in the process.

Unlike the 2014 campaign, the issue of extending the Régie to sanitation was not a topic of debate in 2020. It does not feature among Philippe Saurel's nine campaign proposals, nor in Michaël Delafosse's program, which places greater emphasis on eco-friendly water pricing. And yet, the extension to sanitation was one of the first reforms enacted at the beginning of his term of office.

John Kingdon's "Windows of Opportunity and Agendas" model (Kingdon John W., 1984) will be used for this study, given the importance it attaches to the political context. According to John Kingdon, an issue becomes part of the political agenda when three currents converge: the problem current, the solution current, and the policy current. Thus, the issue of choosing water management methods and governance in Montpellier was on the agenda of the candidates in the 2014 municipal elections because there were problems (the denunciation of poor water management by Veolia, holder of the public service delegation contract since 1989), solutions (proposals on the possibility of returning water to public management), and policy directions (public opinion in favor of reform through the citizen mobilization of the association Eau Secours 34 and elected officials sensitive to the issue, including the future winner of the municipal elections in Montpellier).

To answer the main research question, the following hypotheses will be put forward:

  • The publicity and inclusion on the agenda of the return of water to public management is what brought it into the public debate.
  • Public authorities are compelled to address the issue under the influence of three major combined dynamics: mobilization, media coverage, and political politicization.
  • The choice of organizational model for water supply in Montpellier transcends all the usual political divisions.
  • The return of water to public control is decisively influenced by the arsenal of tools deployed by its supporters.

Research methodology and process

With regard to the argumentative dimension of discourse, the aim will be to put into perspective the models of representation that structure the logic of action around public policies and to identify the various issues of legitimacy.

By defining behaviors, logics give rise to practices that are linked to actors. This phenomenon, at the organizational, sectoral, or societal level, can be described by the term institutional logic, in the sense of the way of reasoning as it is actually practiced, rather than in accordance with the rules of formal logic. Numerous institutional logics are present throughout our society and in the organizations that comprise it (Friedland and Alford, 1991). These are social constructs, beliefs, and norms that organize relationships between individuals and groups of individuals, while giving them meaning (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999).

How are choices made, given that what matters in a reference to logic is to link causes and consequences and to justify a decision? Supporters of this reform, opponents of change, institutional logics will be identified, involving the clarification of the set of beliefs, values, and tools derived from the institutions that structure the actions of the various parties on the basis of these elements of "evidence" used.
Institutional logics will be used in this research to explain how a problem becomes translatable into public policy (NEVEU Éric, 2015) and why policy implementation can lead to a series of problems and operations (NEVEU Éric, 2017).

Comparing Montpellier with its counterpart, the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolitan area, which switched to public water management in 2015, will allow us to move beyond Montpellier’s specific situation and its struggles in the debate on management methods.

As comparison enriches explanation, new avenues of analysis may be discovered, or elements that enable the concepts identified to be refined. "It is often argued that apples and pears are incomparable, but the inevitable counterargument is: how can we know this before comparing them?" (SARTORI, Giovanni, 1994).

As Aristide MAMILO is an employee of the Office of the President of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, assigned to the elected officials in charge of implementing the water authority, the challenge will be to put into practice the mechanisms of "participatory objectification" (Bourdieu, 1992, 2001, 2003) on behalf of this research project. The objectification of the sociologist's subjective relationship to his object. This approach allows a return to more reflexive methodologies that attempt to understand human and organizational actions through a practical relationship to practice. To escape scholastic confinement, Bourdieu (1997) recommends not shying away from tasks considered the most humble in the research profession, such as direct observation, interviews, data coding, and statistical analysis.

► Field survey:
Since most of the key figures on both sides of the debate, Pro DSP and Pro Régie, are still active in the economic, political, and associative spheres, a field survey is a relevant approach. The data collected will help to highlight and enhance the empirical work on the subject. The forms will vary depending on the desired demonstration (Hughes Everett, 1996).

Observation

Any remunicipalization raises the question of who will be in charge of implementing the reform. One of the conditions for successful remunicipalization is having reliable internal managers. Can this analogy be applied to the return of water services to public management in Montpellier? The hypothesis is that local managers resisted the implementation of the reform in the direction desired by the executive. The emphasis should not be placed on the outcome of individual deliberation, but on the way in which the individual constructs and legitimizes this choice. We need to study the procedure that the actor implements rather than analyzing only the result (Simon Herbert 1955, 1978). As Simon suggests, was the rationality of the DEA not achieved in and through the calculation of the dismantling of the public water and sanitation service? But based on empirical knowledge and intuition about the future, the reform was not technically feasible. And even if it had been, implementation within 18 months was only viable for an autonomous authority, with the local authority retaining control of the public service but individualizing the activity by giving it financial autonomy.

The interview

To analyze the attitudes of the protagonists at the heart of this battle, Mr. Aristide MAMILO will conduct a series of interviews in the different camps, using either a semi-structured or open-ended approach.

► Data will also be collected from another main source, namely:

Documentation of the land:

To conduct this historical study, four main sources of information will be used:

  • Existing scientific literature on water management and governance in France (BLANCHET T., HERZBERG C. 2017). Study on the governance and organization of drinking water services returned to public management in France (2000-2016). Latts. HAL.

We will survey:

  • Theses and scientific articles, scientific reports, legal and technical studies
  • Local historical documentation (regional press, articles, reports, petitions, notes, etc.)
  • Technical and financial archives of local authorities, internal memos, municipal deliberations and communications, financial documents, contracts, etc.
  • Semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with key figures in the region (politicians, community leaders, activists, managers, etc.).

Finally, he will have free rein to use theoretical sampling, meaning that the choice of data sources will be based on the evolution of his understanding of the problem throughout the research process. No source will be excluded a priori. He will therefore use his privileged position as a "participant-observer" to enhance the whole.

Expected results

This thesis project aims to explain a sequence of public action: the return of water services to public management in Montpellier in 2014, after 25 years of public service delegation to VEOLIA. Consequently, it will analyze the phenomenon whereby the idea of returning to public management, which has been outside the political debate since 1989, is beginning to gain legitimacy according to the following stages described by Overton: from the unthinkable to the radical, from the acceptable to the reasonable, from the popular to public policy.

A first expected outcome of this work is to generate new knowledge in the field of organizational sociology by addressing the phenomena of politicization.

First, it will be shown that taking into account the temporal dimensions of public action provides a better understanding of the nature and meaning of these dynamics of change (Jacques de Maillard, 2006). We will also highlight the plurality of temporalities that clash in these public action processes (political time, administrative time) as well as the predominance of a political temporality that is imposed on the various actors (Dammame, Jobert, 1995).

The collaboration between the doctoral student and the LABORATORY, and the survey of those involved in this process, will enable the regular reporting of research results in different spheres, offering expertise that can be mobilized by everyone, including citizens.

SCHEDULE

The project will be carried out over three years, in three phases of one year each.

The first phase will be devoted to an introduction to research. Bibliographic research will supplement the research already included in this project. Next, reading books, articles, and journals will enable the project to be amended and, if necessary, new directions to be adopted.

Fieldwork will be conducted concurrently with the development of a system of hypotheses with comparative variables.

The second phase will involve continuing fieldwork while also beginning to draft a thesis proposal.

Finally, the third phase will be dedicated to finalizing the thesis and preparing for the defense.