CEPEL

Water Authority

Issues

The management and sharing of water resources have taken a wide variety of forms depending on the era, location, scale, or social and cultural systems involved. Generally, all these models of water governance have affirmed and protected water’s status as a public good or a common good. The history of private management has deep roots in France. As early as the 19th century, large corporations were able to position themselves as long-term partners of public authorities and offer them concessions at opportune moments to safeguard their interests (Defeuilley, 2017). The Compagnie générale des eaux was established by an imperial decree of Napoleon III on December 14, 1853, with the city of Lyon committing to purchase water (10,000 m³) under conditions set in advance (17 francs per m³), non-reviseable for 20 years. This was the first water concession in history.

Added to this were institutional fragmentation and the scarcity of municipal resources, which made the “streamlining” assistance provided by large private corporations highly valuable to elected officials (Pezon, 2002). Case law from the Council of State supports this trend by providing protections for concessionaires against certain risks (theory of the Prince’s act, theory of unforeseeability, etc.). Finally, one can also note the protective and stabilizing role of the Ministry of the Interior, which drafted standard contracts and contributed to the evolution of concessions into lease agreements, in which investments are financed by the local government (Lorrain, 2008).

Since then, the model of private water management has seemed to become dominant. In France, the proportion of public service delegation is almost the opposite of that in the rest of the world: nearly 80% of the 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 far superior to public management, which is perceived as bureaucratic and inefficient.

This vision of governance has been in crisis since the 2000s, coming up against a movement advocating for the remunicipalization of water. This has been demonstrated in numerous cities in France and in the majority of European cities, highlighting the fact that public management that involves citizens, politicians, and utility employees in the decision-making process can enable socially responsible 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 people, or 39% of the French population. Services managed under delegation, on the other hand, account for 31% of services but cover nearly 61% of the population, or approximately 41 million people.

Even though, ideologically speaking, public management is seen as a hallmark of the left, the choice of a management model is not based on political affiliation; in other words, decision-makers do not opt for public management simply because they are politically left-leaning, nor do they choose private management simply because they are right-leaning, as this pattern does not hold true across the board (Le Bart, Christian; Pasquier, Romain; and Arnaud, Lionel, 2007). The example of Montpellier confirms this with the shift that occurred in 1989, when Georges Frêche, the Socialist mayor of Montpellier, decided to delegate the management of water and sanitation—which had until then been under direct municipal control—to the Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE, a private company that has since become Veolia) (Touly Jean-Luc, Lenglet Roger, 2005). A common practice at the time and banned since 1995, Veolia paid an entry fee of 250 million francs to the city of Montpellier to secure the contract in 1989. This payment, which was purportedly used to finance the Corum, was in fact a loan carrying an interest rate of 7.5% per year.

Seven 25-year public service delegation (PSD) contracts of the leasehold type have been established for the production and distribution of drinking water and sanitation services.
Given that the expiration dates of the public service delegation contracts for thirteen municipalities fell between October 30 and December 31, 2014, in November 2012, the Montpellier Urban Community launched a major public consultation campaign titled “What Water for Tomorrow?” to help it decide: should it continue with private management or return to public management? This “sham of a major public consultation” was denounced in the March 25, 2013, edition of Midi Libre by the association Eau Secours 34, whose proposal to organize a local initiative referendum had not been accepted. Instead, the association launched a major campaign between 2013 and 2014 through a petition, collecting 10,000 signatures in favor of public water management.

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

  • Scenario A: No division; the entire water service is managed by the public sector, either through a public utility or a public service company.
  • Scenario B. No division of responsibilities; management of the entire water service is delegated to a single operator;
  • Scenario C. 1 “production” area (Lez, Arago, wells, purchased water), public management (public utility or SPL).

1 “Distribution and Customer Relations” area: delegated management.
Scenario D. 1 “production” area (Lez, Arago, wells, water purchases), public management (municipal agency or SPL)
1 “distribution” area: delegated management.
1 “user management” area: public management (municipal agency or SPL).

The council voted by a majority (16 against, 7 abstentions, 1 abstained) in favor of Scenario B, as selected by the executive branch: the delegation of the entire drinking water and raw water service through a single lease agreement. This amounts to a new 7-year public service delegation (DSP) for drinking water, running until 2021, effective January 1, 2015.

Among the 16 elected officials who voted against renewing this public service delegation agreement (DSP) was René Revol, mayor of Grabels since 2008, a former member of the Socialist Party (PS), and an activist with the Left Party. This vote is consistent with the mayor’s political record, as he has made the return to public water management a key commitment, included in his 2014 municipal election platform in Grabels. For the Montpellier municipal elections, René Revol is supporting the Left Party candidate, Muriel Ressiguier, whose return to public water management is a key commitment in her platform. Having failed to qualify for the second round of the Montpellier election, the Left Party is refusing to merge its list with Jean-Pierre Moure’s PS/EELV list or with Philippe Saurel’s “Citoyenne” list for the second round.

Like René Revol, Philippe Saurel voted against renewing the Public Service Delegation at the metropolitan council meeting on July 25, 2013. But on May 6, 2013, when a motion was introduced in the Montpellier City Council by EELV and Front de Gauche representatives calling for the return of water and sanitation services to public management, only those two groups voted in favor of it. The elected officials comprising the PS majority and those on the right voted against it. Philippe Saurel, then deputy mayor in charge of culture and heritage and a member of 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 Socialist Party to select its candidate. Because he maintained his candidacy—which the Socialist Party deemed dissident—he was expelled from the party on January 7, 2014. Philippe Saurel then ran as an independent and surprised observers by also making the return of water services to public management a campaign pledge. The list he headed won in Montpellier. On October 30, 2014, the metropolitan council he chairs declared, “The public service delegation contract for drinking water to the private sector is terminated on grounds of public interest.”

The issue of choosing management approaches 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 seek to transcend this view using the example of Montpellier in 2014, by taking a path previously largely overlooked in the analysis of public policy. To explain the process that led to the return of water to public management in Montpellier, we draw on the politicization phenomena surrounding it, as the significance lies in the fact that there is not only a plurality of actors but also other potentially influential factors (interest, legitimacy, affect), as well as a plurality of levels (local dynamics, national or international actors?). Analysis in terms of the policy 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, requiring responses in the form of public action (Sheppard, Elisabeth, 2010). It takes into account the dynamics of collective mobilization, media coverage, and politicization, and broadens the spectrum of public action actors to include social movements, the media, and elected officials (Patrick Hassenteufel, 2010).

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

What were the contextual factors (set of prior circumstances) and the specific circumstances (set of subsequent events) that made the return of water services to public management possible in Montpellier in 2014?

Based on this information, 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 come to the forefront of the 2014 municipal election agenda—that is, among the priority issues that candidates must address?
  • Why don’t issues like public safety, taxation, and transportation—which are part of the campaign—manage to win his heart?
  • What has been the subject of consensus and what has been controversial throughout this pre- and post-election period?

The subject will be analyzed in terms of its historical context and its financial, technical, organizational, and political determinants. 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*. Comparing this with another empirical case—namely, the extension of public water management to sanitation for the 31 municipalities of the Montpellier Metropolitan Area, approved on December 14, 2021, during the community council meeting—will provide valuable insight into the evaluation, helping to highlight differences, questions, and even similarities in the process.

Unlike in the 2014 campaign, the issue of expanding the Régie’s jurisdiction to include wastewater services did not feature prominently in the 2020 debates. It does not appear among Philippe Saurel’s nine campaign proposals, nor, for that matter, in Michaël Delafosse’s platform, which places greater emphasis on eco-solidarity water pricing. And yet, the expansion to include wastewater services was one of the first reforms enacted at the start of his term.

John Kingdon’s “Windows of Opportunity and Agendas” model (Kingdon, John W., 1984) will be used for this study, given the importance it places on the political context. According to John Kingdon, an issue gains prominence on the political agenda when three streams converge: the stream of problems, the stream of solutions, and the stream of policy orientations. Thus, the issue of choosing water management models and governance in Montpellier found its way onto the agenda of candidates in the 2014 municipal elections because there were problems (criticism of Veolia’s mismanagement of water, as the holder of the public service delegation contract since 1989), solutions (proposals regarding the possibility of returning to public water management), and policy directions (public opinion favorable to reform through the civic 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 address the main research question, the following hypotheses will be proposed:

  • The public discussion and inclusion on the agenda of returning water to public management is what brought the issue to the forefront of public debate.
  • Public authorities are compelled to address the issue due to the combined influence of three major factors: public mobilization, media coverage, and political polarization.
  • The choice of organizational model for Montpellier’s water supply transcends all the usual political divides.
  • The return of water to public ownership is significantly influenced by the range of tools employed by its proponents.

Research Methodology and Process

With regard to the argumentative dimension of discourse, the focus will be on contextualizing the representational models that shape the logic of action surrounding public policy and identifying the various issues of legitimacy involved.

By defining behaviors, logics give rise to practices that are linked to the actors involved. This phenomenon, whether at the organizational, sectoral, or societal level, has been described as “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 as well as 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 decisions made, given that what matters in a reference to logic is establishing the relationship between causes and consequences and providing a justification for a decision? Whether supporters of this reform or opponents of change, institutional logics will be identified, which involves specifying the set of beliefs, values, and tools derived from the institutions that structure the actions of the various parties based on the “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 the translation into policy can lead to a series of problems and operations (NEVEU Éric, 2017).

By comparing the case of Montpellier with that of its counterpart, the Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolitan Area—which transitioned to public water management in 2015—we will be able to move beyond Montpellier’s unique circumstances and the struggles it has faced in the debate over management models.

Since comparison enriches the explanation, new avenues of analysis may be discovered, or elements that help refine the identified concepts. “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 Mr. Aristide MAMILO is a staff member in the Office of the President of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, assigned to work with elected officials responsible for 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 for a return to more reflexive methodologies that seek to understand human and organizational actions through a practical relationship to practice. To escape scholastic confinement, Bourdieu (1997) further advocates not shying away from the tasks considered the most humble in the researcher’s profession, such as direct observation, interviews, data coding, or statistical analysis.

► Field research:
Since the majority of key figures from both camps—Pro DSP and Pro Régie—are still active in the economic, political, and associative spheres, conducting field research is appropriate. The data collected will help bring the subject to life and highlight the empirical work on the topic. The methods used will vary depending on the intended demonstration (Hughes Everett, 1996).

Observation

Any remunicipalization requires addressing the issue of leadership and management—specifically, who will oversee the implementation of the reform. One of the conditions for successful remunicipalization is having reliable internal leaders. Can this analogy be applied to the return of water services to public management in Montpellier? The hypothesis is that local managers resisted implementing the reform in the manner desired by the executive branch. The focus should not be on the outcome of individual decision-making, but on how the individual constructs and justifies that choice. We must study the procedure the actor implements rather than merely analyzing the outcome (Simon Herbert 1955, 1978). As Simon suggests, did the rationality of the DEA not emerge from and through the calculation of dismantling the public water and sanitation service? However, based on an understanding of empirical reality and an 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 agency, with the local authority retaining control of the public service while individualizing the activity by granting it financial autonomy.

The Interview

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

► Data will also be collected through another primary source, namely:

Land documentation:

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

  • The 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 records (regional press, articles, reports, petitions, memos, etc.)
  • Technical and financial records of local governments, internal memos, municipal resolutions and communications, financial documents, contracts, etc.
  • Semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders across the region (politicians, community leaders, activists, administrators, etc.).

Finally, he will make full use of theoretical sampling, meaning that the selection of data sources will be based on the evolving understanding of the problem throughout the research process. No source will be excluded from the outset. He will therefore use his privileged position as a “participant-observer” to bring out the best in the whole.

Expected results

This thesis project aims to explain a specific instance of public policy: the return of water services to public management in Montpellier in 2014, following 25 years of public service concessions awarded to VEOLIA. Consequently, the study will analyze the phenomenon whereby the idea of a return to public management—which has been outside the political debate since 1989—begins to gain ground in terms of legitimacy, following the stages described by Overton: from the unthinkable to the radical, from the acceptable to the reasonable, and from the popular to public policy.

One of the expected outcomes of this research is to generate new insights in the field of organizational sociology by examining the phenomenon of politicization.

First, it will be shown that taking into account the temporal dimensions of public action allows for 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 processes of public action (political time, administrative time) as well as the predominance of a political temporality that imposes itself on the various actors (Dammame, Jobert, 1995).

The collaboration between the doctoral student and the LABORATORY, along with the survey of stakeholders involved in this process, will enable the regular dissemination of research findings across various sectors, providing expertise that can be accessed by everyone, including the general public.

SCHEDULE

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

The first phase will focus on an introduction to research. A literature review will supplement the research already identified in this project. Subsequently, reading books, articles, and journals will enable us to refine the project and, if necessary, adopt new directions.

The fieldwork will be conducted in conjunction with the development of a framework of hypotheses involving comparative variables.

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

Finally, the third phase will be devoted to completing the thesis and preparing for the defense.