New Signs the Tide May Be Shifting Against Water Privatization

In the first hours of 2010, the city of Paris, whose water system has been under various forms of mixed public and private management for much of the last century, took back public control of its water utility. The decision is emblematic of changes occurring throughout the world, with the wave of utility privatizations ebbing in the face of mismanagement, dismal community relations and a rising tide of concern, in the developing world especially, about whether denial of affordable, safe water constitutes an abuse of human rights.

Despite a widespread crisis of confidence in private investment inspired both by the acknowledged failures of water privatization and by the global economic crisis, the private water industry is far from giving up the ghost. France, the nation that has promoted deregulation and privatization so strongly that this particular ideological export is known as the "French model" of water management, is still home to some of the world's most powerful private water entities.

The next World Water Forum, the largest global event dedicated to water management, will be held in the southern French port city of Marseilles in 2012. If events that took place in Paris last week are any indication, the gathering, like past Water Forums in Istanbul, Mexico City, and Kyoto, Japan, will attract significant and vocal opposition.

Eau de Paris

The Paris city council announced in June 2009 that the city's water system would revert to public control at the end of 2009. When public water advocates from around the world, coordinated through the Reclaiming Public Water network, gathered at a series of meetings in Paris last week, they were surprised to discover that the shift to public management of the city's water was not being widely or publicly celebrated. According to André Aubre of France Liberté, a humanitarian foundation directed by Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of former French President Francois Mitterrand, the relative quiet surrounding the switch was due to pressure from the private sector, which holds tremendous sway in the country, and the fact that the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, plans to campaign for president in 2012.

According to Aubre, who had initially invited members of the Reclaiming Public Water network to Paris for what were expected to be high-level and very public celebrations, Mayor Delanoë and other Parisian officials seem to have eschewed the attention that might have accompanied the city's reclaiming of its public water -- a significant victory in the eyes of water justice advocated worldwide -- preferring to manage the change with some discretion.

Anne Le Strat, the CEO of Eau de Paris, the public entity that now manages the city's water, spoke to members of Reclaiming Public Water in Brussels, Belgium a few days before they traveled to Paris to take part in meetings there. "Historically in France," Ms. Le Strat said, "It's important to understand that over 100 years ago water services were outsourced. You often find the same people in private sector, high-level administration, and politics. In the beginning we were very few in favor of public management -- until the Paris mayor announced during his campaign that he would go public; that changed the situation."

Since 1985, water distribution on the right bank of the Seine was managed by Compagnie des Eaux de Paris (then a subsidiary of Veolia), and on the left bank by Eau et Force -- Parisienne des Eaux (a subsidiary of Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux). But private involvement in French water extends back far beyond the 1980s. Since the 19th century, French municipalities have been outsourcing drinking water and sanitation services left and right, often to the corporations referred to as the "three sisters" -- three French multinationals that control nearly the entire water market in the country. According to the Conseil de la Concurrence, or Council on Competition, an independent French agency charged with monitoring anticompetitive practices, Veolia, formerly Vivendi, formerly Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE), controls 56 percent of the French market; Ondeo-Suez, formerly Lyonnaise des Eaux, controls 29 percent; and Bouygues-La Saur, controls 13 percent.