Water thief!

Journalist, Marc Laime investigated several years on the water problems. In 2003 he published "The Case of the water. Shortages, pollution, corruption "(Seuil, 20 euros), before writing in 2008," The Battles of water "(Blue Earth, 45 euros). Public policy advisor for water and sanitation to local authorities, he runs two blogs: The icy waters of egotistical calculation (www.eauxglacees.com) The books and water (http://blog.mondediplo .net/-Carnets-d-eau-).
Since the nineteenth century, the delegation of public water service to private singles out water management in France. Worldwide, only 7-8% of water utilities are now entrusted to private operators, and the French model is unusual in Europe. Promoted internationally over the last twenty years, he has allowed Veolia and Suez to become the two "majors" world of water. But the monopoly they exercise in France for nearly half a century an essential public service is increasingly questioned because of the excesses he has trained. At the time of the implosion of financial capitalism, the future of management "French" water stands out as an important democratic issue.
Water is at the convergence of multidimensional issues: economic, social, territorial, environmental, indivisible, and which system. She joined in recent years, the era of anxiety, as a result of cumulative factors: global, spectrum scarcity and degradation of the quality of this unique resource, which affects more than 2 billion people, a situation that causes nearly 30,000 deaths every day, ten times the mortality from armed conflict and concerns about the increasing pollution of water resources, their impact on the environment and public health, the continued increase in the amount of the invoice and opacity continued its management, the presence, finally, transnational corporations, coupled with themes of commodification of a good life.
The situation is paradoxical. France is the birthplace companies have become world leaders in water, and now environmental services. They will exercise a monopoly, since it holds in the form of contracts for public service delegation agreements with local authorities, 80% of the market for water, 55% of the wastewater treatment , not to mention waste, waste, heating, transport, catering ...
The presence of an effective cartel of water is another form of French exception, since the public service delegation (PSD) is sometimes referred to as "second public service model to the French." But the "public-private partnership" (PPP) has shown, for a century and a half, first in France and, for twenty years worldwide, it is based primarily on the capture of annuity Public simple to summarize: socializing losses and privatizing profits ...
The challenge abuses of this mobilizes private management group now hundreds of citizens throughout the country. The publication, January 31, 2006, a survey of the UFC-Que Choisir, renewed in November 2007, denouncing the exorbitant margins realized by these companies, has rekindled a debate now recurring on water management. Distant "replica" of the Sapin law of 1993, which aimed to "moralize" the procurement, thousands of contracts of delegation of public service water and sanitation began to expire, to 'edge of the years 2000 and will be renegotiated by the French communities, at a steady pace in the coming years, at a rate of 600 to 700 contracts per year.
In the field, the mobilization is gaining momentum on all fronts: water pollution, environmental damage, health concerns, proceedings against the excesses of the "delegated management". In Italy, hundreds of community focused initiative referendum to prohibit any further liberalization of the water sector. The Netherlands also put an end to the open water area of ​​the market, like Belgium. In France, large companies exercise control over all unsuspected areas of water management, such as research and development, largely privatized. They also strongly guide the legislative and regulatory developments in the sector.
But many elected officials and communities are now refusing the 'accidents'. Created in the winter of 2006, the association water users associations (UAE) argues for public management of water. Throughout France, hundreds of community, associations, elected officials, communities commit to an "other" water management, democratic and sustainable. And these protests are successful. In Bordeaux, the obstinate action of an association of users allowed to recover the Metropolitan in 2006, nearly 230 million in overpayments for 30 years by the incumbent of the contract. In Lyon, under pressure from users, the city has delegated his force to fall by 16% the price of water. Same in Toulouse. The current mayor of Paris has undertaken to put the water service in the capital under the control of a public authority in the course of the next term. Lille users alike are mobilizing. In the Vosges, the city of Neufchâteau, after reporting a delegation agreement unilaterally, public ownership has created a copy which is now a school. The city of Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), who also denounced one-sided contract, won in January 2008 the trial that he brought an enterprise that benefits claimants considerable ...
In the Paris region, the expiry in 2010, since 1923 the contract between the Union waters of Ile-de-France (Sedif), which includes common Ile 144, the Compagnie Generale des Eaux, a subsidiary of Veolia, to rise the same mobilization that is gaining in intensity. While the last twenty years, citizens suffer the repeated battering of neoliberalism devastating, multifaceted struggles for water record victories, including the issue of "republicisation" of water to scale of Commons. Water, local resource, locally managed, is a lever arm and unsuspected, restoring political commitment and citizen. Good news for all those committed to the rebuilding of "living together". ■
Marc Laime