Between recognition of industrial pollution by plastic, conviction for
illegal taking of interest, repeated layoff plans and concealedmonopolization of the resource; in the Vosges, the bottling giant Nestlé
Waters has accumulated scandals and judicial investigations. For ten
years, activist residents' associations and whistleblowers have rolled
up their sleeves to lead the legal fight, in a region where land
exploitation has always been a matter of course.
On the edge of the diagonal of emptiness, at the geographical edge of
the Vosges mountains in the Grand Est, the neighboring spa towns of
Contrexéville and Vittel have been distinguished by their opulence since
the 19th century. The therapeutic virtues of the region's groundwater
are prized by the Russian oligarchy and all the European aristocracy, so
from 1857, people began to fill bottles with it. For a century, sales
followed a crazy curve. In 1969, the Swiss group Nestlé bought 30% of
the capital, then in 1989, all the shares of the Société des eaux de
Vittel...
Among all the pumped geological cavities, the water table of the Lower
Triassic sandstone (GTI) constitutes a reservoir of very high quality
water, but from which the multinational now draws quantities too large
to allow its natural recharge. Today, the company is responsible for
nearly 80% of its deficit and it would be necessary to let at least
fifty years pass without pumping for it to reach its pre-industrial
levels. An objective far from being in the projects of the company or
the communities.
Arsenic, fraud, illegal pumping: a competitive legal record
In 2010, the firm announced that it wanted to reduce its water
abstraction from 700,000 to 200,000 m³ of water per year, in order to
achieve an overall reduction of 1,000,000 m³ of water extracted each
year. A plan presented as a joint effort by industry and public
authorities. The Local Water Commission (CLE), an organization founded
the same year and placed under the authority of the departmental
council, had set the horizon for restoring the water table level at 2015.
Before pushing back these expectations to 2021, then to 2027. In the
meantime, the discovery of nine illegal drillings showed the additional
extraction of approximately 650,000 m³ of water per year (figure
calculated on the 2018 pumping) by Nestlé Waters from water tables that
were less monitored than that of the GTI. A cover-up that the company
initially denied, before having to admit under the burden of proof, but
without ever having had to appear in court.
Already under the threat of a police investigation attempting to
determine its exact degree of responsibility after the discovery of
dumps of several tens of thousands of m³ of plastic bottles buried
between 1960 and 1970 in pits in neighboring municipalities, Nestlé
Waters has continued to be hit with scandals in recent years. Sometimes
criticized, but most often defended by leading local elected officials.
In the They-sous-Montfort landfill, thousands of buried plastic bottles
end up rising to the surface.
UCL Vosges
The most striking demonstration of this collusion remains the conviction
of Claudie Pruvost, former president of the CLE, wife of a Nestlé Waters
executive and former departmental councilor of the canton of Vittel,
pinned by the Nancy court in 2021 for illegal taking of interest and
sentenced to 3 months of suspended prison sentence as well as a 5,000
euro fine. An event which, as noted by Alexandre Abdelilah, journalist
at Mediapart, will unambiguously mark for years to come "the system of
influence set up by Nestlé in the Vosges". The same media will return to
this theme several times through its "Water Stories" files, providing
its share of evidence and suspicions concerning other activities of the
company.
In April 2024, the investigative unit of Radio France and Le Monde
revealed that Nestlé Waters had used prohibited treatments to purify its
water (Hépar, Contrex, Vittel, Perrier, San Pellegrino), as had the
Source Alma group (Rozana, St-Yorre, Cristalline). Their "natural
mineral" and "spring" names constitute a commercial deception. A
confidential internal report issued in parallel by Nestlé Waters
engineers, the details of which were published by Médiapart,
corroborates the accusation. The latter presents a complete inventory of
the underground resource and industrial equipment, warning in particular
of the failure of filters controlling the dose of arsenic in bottled
water, as well as nineteen other irregularities and non-compliance with
regulations.
After two years of investigation[1]after the case was entrusted to the
French Office for Biodiversity, on September 10, 2024, the company
finally appeared before the Epinal judicial court in order to deal with
both cases at once: that of the treatment of its water, as well as that
of the illegal drilling.
Pat on the back and blows in the water
The five partner associations of the Eau 88 collective[2]who had filed a
complaint in 2020 against the company for its drilling, will not attend
a trial that day, "but a little pat on the back" relates Bernard
Schmitt. The latter is co-president of the collective and a member of
the CLE since 2016.
The prosecutor actually brought together the lawyers of the two parties
only to announce the arrangements discussed amicably with Nestlé,
through the signing of a Public Interest Judicial Convention (CIJP). "A
document that cuts short any possibility of appeal and sweeps things
under the carpet," he sums up. All this while insisting once again on
the multinational's determination to define the contours of this new
partnership with the authorities. He specifies: "Our lawyer did not even
have the opportunity to consult the content of this CIJP, or to discuss
it with the public prosecutor[...]who rushed the case." The case was
simply settled privately. Nestlé Waters was nevertheless forced to pay a
fine of 2.1 million euros to the public treasury and to local
authorities, as well as nearly 500,000 euros in compensation to the five
associations that brought the case to court. A paltry compensation given
the company's turnover and in comparison with the profits made by the
fraud - three billion, reports Médiapart in its investigation. Nestlé
Waters was also forced to continue its projects to renature two rivers,
the Vair and the Petit-Vair, started through its landscaping subsidiary
Agrivair.
Nestlé Waters headquarters.
UCL Vosges
Are lobbies stronger than the town hall?
When it fails to win over justice, Nestlé Waters is accustomed to
exercising damage control in the local press: it presents its
environmental compensation projects (like the Petit-Vair renaturation
project) as consensual and satisfactory solutions. A very relative
compensation, bordering on misleading in view of the impossible recovery
of the chemical health of the soils or the loss of biodiversity beyond
the revitalized areas.
While the method may have convinced some residents, other damage caused
by the company has ended up alienating part of the population. What
about, for example, the repeated job cuts? 2,100 employees were still
working at the factory in 2005. Twenty years later, there are only 550
left... A quarter of the workforce was let go again last year, following
a drop in orders and the end of the Hépar brand.
The politicians, for their part, are inflating the airbag. The
redundancy plans are causing sincere procrastination, but the plan has
never been to abandon the industrial exploitation of the water tables.
The headquarters of the Terres d'eau community of communes is the place
where the mayors of the neighboring communes meet; it is located near
the Nestlé Waters factories.
A few hundred meters from these emblematic places is the Ermitage cheese
factory, a growing cooperative of 400 dairy producers that employs
nearly 700 employees on site, it is the largest employer in the basin
and the second largest operator of the aquifers. The extraction of the
resource is not called into question there either: the region's economy
has always turned to water.
But all is not yet lost for the opponents. As a last resort, in order to
demand a fair trial, the consumer protection association Food Watch
announced that it had filed a new complaint. Thanks to the mobilizations
and pressure from the media, the Senate Economic Affairs Committee
finally recognized in October "problems of transparency and purpose of
public action" in the judicial handling of the case. It also plans to
launch a commission of inquiry into, in particular, the offices of the
Ministers of Economy Bruno Le Maire and Health Olivier Véran, raising
suspicions of lobbying at the highest level of the State.
In a major coup, the multinational appointed a new president last
season. Laurent Freixe has set himself until 2027 to increase the
group's turnover by +4% to +6%.
In the midst of the scandal, one of its first decisions was to
restructure its subsidiary Nestlé Waters into a public limited company.
Since January 1, 2025, all the waters and bottling plants of the number
one in the agri-food sector have been grouped under a separate
commercial entity, with its own management. The message is bad. In
Vittel and Contrexéville, neither the unions nor the local elected
officials have been warned and everyone fears a resale or at least a
social plan of unprecedented scale.
UCL Vosges
To find out more, watch the Arte documentary "À sec, la grande soif des
multinationales", consult the "Water stories" by Mediapart and the work
of Vosges nature environnement, returning in detail to the Nestlé
affairs. Find the full interview with Bernard Schmitt soon on the
Alternative libertaire newspaper website.
Fighting so that water remains a common good
Water is an essential resource for human activity. It is the subject of
strong social demands to be protected in a capitalist society that
accelerates climate change by the depletion of resources.
In France, recently, the Earth Uprisings mobilized against the
mega-basins that dry up the water tables for the benefit of
agro-industrialists. This struggle has made it possible to cancel
several mega-basin projects on the territory. In 2009 in Italy, from
Naples, the slogan "Acqua bene comune" ("water a common good") brought
the country together against the privatization of local public services,
such as water. Victory for the mobilization: through a popular
initiative referendum, a vote against privatization passed with 95% of
the votes.
In Bolivia, in the early 2000s in Cochabamba, the water war pitted the
social movement (organized in the Coordination for the Defense of Water
and Life) against the government, which delegated the water service to
an international private consortium, leading to an increase in water
prices. In 2005, the city of El Alto also mobilized against
privatization. Finally, water was recognized as a common good,
responding to the principle of non-commodification in the Bolivian
Constitution in 2009.
Popular movements make it possible to grant legal personality to rivers.
This is the case in New Zealand, where the Iwi have been fighting for
150 years to recognize the rights of the Te Awa Tupua River: an
important step for the recognition of Maori culture. Against the
monopolization of resources by the private sector, which pollutes, dries
up, and privatizes water, the fight pays off!
Elsa (UCL Grenoble)
Validate
[1]Based on a survey by the Directorate General for Competition,
Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF).
[2]The partner associations of the Eau 88 collective are the Association
for the Preservation of Valleys and the Prevention of Pollution, France
Nature Environnement, Lorraine Nature Environnement, UFC Que Choisir and
Oiseaux Nature.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Nestle-L-eau-ne-coulera-jamais-sous-les-ponts-de-Vittel
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