CEPEL

Water Board

Issues

The management and sharing of water resources have taken many different forms, depending on the time, place, scale or social and cultural systems involved. Generally speaking, all these models of water governance have asserted and protected water's character as a public or common good. The history of private management has ancient roots in France. As far back as the 19th century, we could observe the ability of major groups to present themselves as long-term auxiliaries to public authorities, offering them concessions at the right times to safeguard their interests (Defeuilley, 2017). The Compagnie Générale des Eaux was created by Napoleon III's imperial decree on December 14, 1853, with the city of Lyon agreeing to purchase water (10,000 m³) under pre-determined conditions (17 francs per m³), which could not be revised over 20 years. This was the first water concession in history.

Added to this, the fragmentation of institutions and the weakness of municipal resources made the "rationalizing" assistance of large private groups highly appreciated by elected officials (Pezon, 2002). A body of case law from the Conseil d'État (the highest administrative court in France) supports this approach, protecting concession-holders against certain risks (the theory of fait du Prince, the theory of unforeseeability, etc.). Finally, we should also mention the protective and stabilizing role played by the French Ministry of the Interior, which has drafted standard contracts and contributed to the evolution of concessions into leasing contracts, in which investments are financed by the local authority (Lorrain, 2008).

Since then, the private water management model seems to have become dominant. In France, the proportion of public service delegations is almost reversed compared to the rest of the world: almost 80% of the water supply is managed by Suez, Veolia and Saur, and since the late 80s, there has been a general mood that private management of all goods is far better than public management, which is supposed to be bureaucratic and inefficient.

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

In 2014, the report from the Observatoire des services publics d'eau et d'assainissement (SISPEA), indicates that, 69% of public drinking water services are under direct management, covering a population of nearly 25 million, or 39% of the French population. Delegated services, on the other hand, account for 31% of services, but cover almost 61% of the population, or some 41 million inhabitants.

In other words, decision-makers don't choose public management when they're politically left-wing and private management when they're right-wing, because this is not systematically confirmed (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 wastewater services, which until then had been the responsibility of a direct municipal authority, 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 the city of Montpellier an entry fee of 250 million francs to win the contract in 1989. This payment, which would have been used to finance the Corum, was in fact a loan with an interest rate of 7.5% per annum.

In November 2012, the Communauté d'Agglomération de Montpellier launched a major consultation process, entitled "Quelle eau pour demain?" (What water for tomorrow?), to help it decide whether to continue with private management or return to public management.
Knowing that the expiry dates of the public service contracts of thirteen communes were due to converge between October 30 and December 31, 2014, the Communauté d'Agglomération de Montpellier launched a major consultation process in November 2012, entitled "Quelle eau pour demain? In the Midi Libre of March 25, 2013, the Eau Secours 34 association denounced this "sham of a major consultation", since its proposal to organize a local initiative referendum had not been accepted. Failing this, the association had launched a major mobilization between 2013-2014, via a petition, gathering the signatures of 10,000 people in favor of public management of water.

Under the chairmanship of Jean-Pierre Moure, on July 25, 2013, Louis Pouget, Vice-President of the Communauté d'Agglomération de Montpellier, delegated to Water and Sanitation, presented the different scenarios selected as part of this consultation:

  • Scenario A. No division, all water services under public management, régie or SPL.
  • Scenario B. No division, delegated management of the entire water service entrusted to the same operator;
  • Scenario C. 1 "production" perimeter (Lez, Arago, boreholes, water purchases), public management (régie or SPL).

1 "distribution and user relations" perimeter: delegated management.
Scenario D. 1 "production" perimeter (Lez, Arago, boreholes, water purchases), public management (public-private partnership or SPL)
1 "distribution" perimeter: delegated management.
1 "user management" perimeter: public management (public-private partnership or SPL).

The Board voted by a majority (16 against, 7 abstentions, 1 not taking part in the vote) in favor of scenario B retained by the executive, a delegation of the entire drinking water and raw water service through a single affermage contract. In other words, a new 7-year public-private partnership for drinking water, until 2021, starting January 1, 2015.

Among the 16 elected representatives who voted against the renewal of this public service contract was René Revol, mayor of Grabels since 2008, a former member of the Socialist Party and activist with the Left Party. This vote is in line with the political career of the mayor, who made a return to public water management a commitment in his program for the 2014 municipal elections in Grabels. For the Montpellier municipal elections, René Revol is backing the Left Party candidate Muriel Ressiguier, whose return to public water management is a commitment in her program. Not qualified for the 2nd round of this Montpellier election, the PG refuses to merge between the two rounds with Jean-Pierre Moure's PS/EELV list and Philippe Saurel's citizens' list.

Like René Revol, Philippe Saurel voted against the renewal of the Délégation de Service Public at the Metropolitan Council meeting on July 25, 2013. But on May 06, 2013, when the EELV and Front de Gauche members of the Montpellier City Council voted in favor of a motion calling for a return to public management of the water and wastewater services, only the 2 groups voted in favor. The PS and right-wing majority voted against. 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 his intention to run in the 2014 municipal elections in 2010. He refused to take part in the primary organized by the PS to designate its candidate. His continued candidacy, deemed dissident by the PS, led to his expulsion from the party on January 7, 2014. Philippe Saurel then ran as a non-party candidate, surprising everyone by also making a return to public water management a campaign commitment. The list he headed won in Montpellier. On October 30, 2014, the agglomeration council over which he presides declares "no further action on the public-private partnership contract for drinking water on grounds of public interest".

The question of choosing management methods from ideological, political, technical, economic, environmental and other angles has been the subject of a great deal of work, tending to demonstrate that decision-makers' choices are only made from purely universalist angles. We attempt to transcend this vision, using the example of Montpellier in 2014, by taking a route that has previously been largely neglected in public policy analysis. To explain the process that led to Montpellier's return to public water management, we draw on the politicization phenomena that surrounded it, as the interest lies in the fact that there is not just a plurality of actors but other potentially influential elements (interest, legitimacy, affect) as well as a plurality of levels (local game, national or international actors?). Analysis in terms of agendas, for example, enables us to understand, on the one hand, the logics involved in prioritizing the problems that public authorities take on and, on the other, how problems 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, mediatization and politicization, broadening the spectrum of public action actors to include social movements, the media and elected representatives (Hassenteufel Patrick, 2010).

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

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

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

  • How does the return to public water management, which was outside the political arena for 20 years (1989-2009), translate into a political decision in 2014?
  • Why is the issue of water management in Montpellier making its way onto the agenda of the 2014 municipal elections, i.e. among the priority issues to be addressed by the candidates?
  • Why is it that issues such as insecurity, taxation and mobility, which are all present in the campaign, fail to win over its heart?
  • What is the consensus and what is the controversy in this pre- and post-electoral period?

The subject will be analyzed in its historical depth, and its financial, technical, organizational and political conditioning. It will also be examined in comparative mode within the institution, by looking at other changes of this type. "One can only explain by comparing", according to Durkheim's precept in the opening pages of Suicide. Comparison with another empirical case, that of the extension of public water management to wastewater treatment for the 31 communes of the Montpellier Metropolis, approved by the community council on December 14, 2021, will make a valuable contribution to the evaluation, enabling differences, questions and even similarities in the process to emerge.

In contrast to the 2014 campaign, the subject of extending the Régie to sanitation was not a topic of debate in 2020. It was not one of Philippe Saurel's 9 campaign proposals, nor indeed in Michaël Delafosse's program, which focuses more on eco-solidarity water pricing. And yet, its extension to wastewater treatment was one of the first reforms agreed at the start of his mandate.

John Kingdon's "Windows of Opportunity and Agendas" model (Kingdon John W., 1984) will be used for this study, given its emphasis on the political context. According to John Kingdon, a problem becomes part of the political agenda when three currents meet: the problem current, the solution current and the orientation current. So, for example, the issue of water management and governance in Montpellier found itself on the agenda of candidates in the 2014 municipal elections because there were problems (the denunciation of the poor management of water by Veolia, holder of the public service delegation contract since 1989), solutions (proposals on the possibility of a return to public water management), and orientations (public opinion in favor of reform, thanks to the mobilization of the Eau Secours 34 association and elected officials sensitive to the issue, including the future winner of the Montpellier municipal elections).

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

  • Publicizing the idea and putting it on the agenda is what led to its emergence in the public debate.
  • Public authorities are forced to take charge of the problem under the combined influence of three major dynamics: mobilization, media coverage and political politicization.
  • The choice of organizational mode for Montpellier's water supply transcends all the usual political divides.
  • The return to public ownership of the water sector is decisively influenced by the instruments deployed by its proponents.

Methodology and research process

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

By defining behaviors, logics give rise to practices that are linked to actors. This phenomenon, at organizational, sectoral or societal level, has been described by the term institutional logic, in the sense of a way of reasoning as it is actually practiced, and not in accordance with the rules of formal logic. Numerous institutional logics are present in our society as a whole, as well as in the organizations that make it up (Friedland and Alford, 1991). These are social constructs, beliefs and norms that organize and give meaning to relationships between individuals and groups of individuals (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999).

How are choices made, bearing in mind that what's important in a reference to logic is to relate causes and consequences, and to provide a justification for a decision? Supporters of this reform, opponents of change, institutional logics will be identified, implying to specify the set of beliefs, values, tools, stemming from the institutions that structure the actions of the different parties on the basis of these employed "evidence" elements.
Institutional logics will be used in this research to explain how a problem becomes translatable into public policy (NEVEU Éric, 2015) and why putting it into policy can lead to a series of problems and operations (NEVEU Éric, 2017).

Comparing the example of Montpellier with that of its counterpart, the Nice Côte d'Azur Metropolis, which switched to public water management in 2015, will enable us to move beyond the specificity of Montpellier and its struggles in the debate on management methods.

The comparison enriches the explanation, and new avenues of analysis may be discovered, or elements may be added to refine the concepts identified: "It is often argued that apples and pears are incomparable; but the inevitable counter-argument is: how can we know until we have compared them?" (SARTORI, Giovanni, 1994).

As Mr. Aristide MAMILO is a member of the Cabinet of the President of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, assigned to work with the elected officials in charge of implementing the water authority, the challenge will be to apply the mechanisms of "Participatory objectivation" (Bourdieu, 1992, 2001, 2003) to this research project. Objectification of the sociologist's subjective relationship with his object. This approach enables 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 humblest of the researcher's trade, such as direct observation, interviews, data coding or statistical analysis.

► The field survey:
As the majority of the protagonists in both camps, Pro DSP and Pro Régie, are still present in the economic-political-associative sphere, the use of a field survey is pertinent. The data gathered will add depth and value to empirical work on the subject. The form taken will vary according to the demonstration required (Hughes Everett, 1996).

Observation

Any remunicipalization requires us to ask ourselves who will be in charge of implementing the reform. One of the prerequisites for successful remunicipalization is to have in-house managers you can rely on. Can this analogy be applied to Montpellier's return to public water management? The hypothesis is that local managers resisted the application of the reform in the direction desired by the executive. The focus should not be 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). Is it not the case, as Simon envisages, that the rationality of the DEA was achieved in and through the calculation of the dismemberment of the public water and sanitation service? But in the knowledge of empirical reality and the intuition of the future to be known, the reform was not technically feasible. And even if it were, an 18-month implementation period would only be valid for an autonomous public utility, with the local authority retaining control of the public service but individualizing the activity by giving it financial autonomy.

Maintenance

To analyze the attitudes of the protagonists at the heart of this battle, Mr. Aristide MAMILO will conduct a series of semi-directive and free interviews in the different camps.

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

Field documentation:

To carry out this historical study, we will draw on four main sources of information:

  • Existing scientific literature concerning water management modes 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 :

  • Scientific theses and 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 notes, municipal deliberations and communications, financial documents, contracts, etc.
  • Semi-structured qualitative interviews with key players in the area (politicians, associations, activists, managers, etc.).

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

Expected results

This thesis proposes to explain a sequence of public action: the return to public water management in Montpellier in 2014, after 25 years of public service delegation to VEOLIA. It will therefore analyze the phenomenon whereby the idea of a return to public management, which has been outside the political debate since 1989, is beginning to nibble away at areas of 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 sphere of organizational sociology by tackling politicization phenomena.

It will first be shown that taking into account the temporal dimensions of public action enables us to better understand the nature and meaning of these dynamics of change (Jacques de Maillard, 2006). It 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 imposes itself on the various actors (Dammame, Jobert, 1995).

The collaboration between the PhD student and the LABORATORY, and the survey of the players involved in this process, will enable the results of the research to be regularly disseminated in different spheres, offering expertise that can be mobilized by everyone, right down to the citizens.

PLANNING

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. Bibliographical research will complete the research already carried out for this project. Then, reading books, articles and journals will enable us to amend the project and, if necessary, adopt new directions.

Fieldwork will be carried out in conjunction with the construction of a system of hypotheses with comparative variables.

In the second phase, we will continue our fieldwork and begin drafting a thesis outline.

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