Un millier de salariés travaillent à l’usine Perrier à Vergèze. Midi Libre – MiKAEL ANISSET
“France Info” and “Le Monde” revealed on Tuesday how the Swiss group allegedly used lobbying to continue marketing its natural mineral waters despite prohibited treatments. By coincidence, a Senate inquiry commission will be in the Gard on Friday.
Emmanuel Macron himself denied the information, assuring that there was neither “agreement” nor “connivance” with Nestlé. This says a lot about the scale of the new revelations from France Info and Le Monde, that very morning, on what the two media outlets call “mineral water fraud”. They accuse the executive of having given in to the lobbying of the world's number one bottled water company and of having thus turned a blind eye to fraudulent practices.
A year ago, at the beginning of January 2024, our colleagues had proven that Nestlé was using non-compliant processes to purify its natural mineral waters: Vittel, Contrex, Hépar and Perrier, the latter coming from the Vergèze site in Gard. This disinfection treatment is not dangerous but it is prohibited for these waters, because it makes them lose their mineral water virtue and because it misleads the consumer about their true origin.
A real soap opera
It was the first episode of a soap opera with multiple twists and turns. Recently, we learned that, following an inspection of the Perrier factory requested by the Gard prefect to “verify the proper dismantling of prohibited treatments”, the Regional Health Agency discovered in May that “the risk of fraud persists”and, moreover, that the quality controls present microbiological results “unusual for a natural mineral water”, with the presence of micro-organisms in the raw water. In a dramatic turn of events, the ARS even suggested considering “a halt to the production of natural mineral water at the Vergèze site”.
The new investigation, released this Tuesday, demonstrates how the relevant ministries, Industry and Health, were made aware of these practices as early as 2021, but that through intense lobbying work that the Director General of Health Jérôme Salomon describes as “blackmail” in a note, Matignon and the Élysée, where the case was brought up, “privileged Nestlé's interests to the detriment of consumers”, writes Le Monde. Despite the recommendation of the same Jérôme Salomon, in January 2023, to turn off the taps at Nestlé sites.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The Secretary General of the Elysée Palace soon to be heard in the Senate
“In view of the names appearing in the press, we are going to extend our hearings to the Secretary General of the Elysée Palace”, reacts the LR senator from Gard, Laurent Burgoa.
He chairs the senatorial commission of inquiry into “bottled water” launched after the first revelations to shed light on the case, in particular the possible failings of the public authorities. By coincidence, the twelve senators are expected in Vergèze on Friday, 24 hours after the hearing of the director of the Occitanie regional agency and the Gard prefect. “Nothing will prevent us from continuing our work”,continues Laurent Burgoa, recalling that all those questioned are under oath. Which requires the truth…
“The attachment and intimate bond between the Perrier brand and the inhabitants”
Last week, it was the mayor of Vergèze, Pascale Fortunat-Deschamps, who went to the Luxembourg Palace, accompanied by the departmental director of territories and the sea (DDTM) of Gard Sébastien Ferra and representatives of the Vistre-Vistrenque territorial public basin establishment (EPTB). The elected official, while recalling “the attachment and the intimate link between the Perrier brand and the inhabitants”, could only admit that she learned of all the dysfunctions “from the press”She also did not hide the fact that she did not appreciate Nestlé's change of strategy, which chose to produce, on two of the four boreholes, “ordinary drinking water” (Maison eau de Perrier, Editor's note) rather than natural mineral water which does not meet the same standards, “and does not have (therefore) the same image”. Above all, beyond the tax loss for the municipality, more than a million euros in four years since this water is not taxed, this production “can be relocated”.
From the DDTM, we also learned that the 2019 prefectural decree authorizing Nestlé to continue the exploitation of Gard groundwater was conditional on the completion of a study on the Perrier hydrosystem. In other words, on the impact that the plant's withdrawals can have on the quantity, and therefore the quality, of the water resource dedicated to the inhabitants of the territory.
Precautionary principle
The first version, delivered in 2021, turned out to be “incomplete”, a second is still awaited. “For four years. Shouldn't we have applied the precautionary principle and prohibited exploitation until the study is submitted ?” asked a senator. “We are applying it by refusing, for the time being, any new drilling, even “test drilling” , replied Sébastien Ferra. Drilling that the mayor of Vergèze nevertheless calls for, for the maintenance of employment, 1,000 employees today, “but in compliance with the regulations in force”, specified the elected official. A question, among many others, to which the Senate committee will have to respond in March in its report.
I subscribe to read the rest