Nestlé took a “transactional” approach, according to Monday’s Senate report. It shared its wrongdoings with the French government, and, in exchange for ending carbon filter treatments, offered instead to use microfiltration at 0.2 microns.
Until that point, French health authorities had established that any filtration below a 0.8-micron threshold would risk altering the water’s composition. But in 2023, the French government allowed local authorities to loosen the regulatory framework through executive action in order to permit the finer microfiltration method.
Monday’s report is the result of a parliamentary inquiry by Socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille into the practices of the French water industry. Ouizille’s inquiry, which followed the publication of the press reports last year, also sought to establish to what extent Macron’s office may have been aware of Nestlé Waters’ practices.
Ouizille and the investigative committee summoned Macron’s former chief of staff Alexis Kohler — who served in that post from 2017 until last month and was often described as “the president’s second brain” — to testify, but Kohler refused to appear, citing the separation between the executive and legislative powers.
The office of the French president nonetheless shared with the investigative committee 74-pages of documents featuring discussions between members of the president’s staff and Nestlé and its lobbyists.
“It was at the highest level of government that the decision to authorize microfiltration below the 0.8 micron threshold was taken,” the report released Monday said. “The presidency knew, at least since 2022, that Nestlé had been cheating for years.”
During a press conference Monday, Ouizille insisted that Kohler had “on several occasions met” with Nestlé lobbyists and that “at the very least, the Elysée was aware of what was happening.”
This article has been updated.