This is the continuation of the chain reaction caused by the rise in energy prices. The price of tap water increased by 7% in Paris on January 1, 2023 according to News Paris, and could increase even more in other communities in France. In question, the impressive increase in the price of gas and electricity, which particularly impacts the water treatment system: the pumps are particularly greedy in electricity. This system can sometimes represent up to half of the energy note of an agglomeration.
Added to inflation are additional investments in the treatment and distribution network (repair of pipelines, modernization of purification, etc.), due to the increasingly common assumption of responsibility for this service in recent years by metropolises or by groups of water syndicates. Added to this is the increase in the price of chemicals used for treatment such as chlorine or activated carbon, the price of which has increased by 10 to 30%.
Several French local authorities and water unions voted at the end of 2022 for an increase of around 10% for 2023. This is the case of Roubaix in the North (9.5%), Thouars in Deux Sèvres (11 %) or Clermont-Ferrand in Puy-de-Dôme (10%), where the bill has already tripled in 2022. In some municipalities, the increase amounts to 30%.
In Charleville-Mézières in the Ardennes, the increase should reach “13% to balance the accounts”, after an increase of 6% in 2022, reports Le Parisienincreasing the price per cubic meter from 4.26 euros to 4.80 euros, or almost 65 euros more per year for a family that consumes 120 cubic meters of water.
However, the price of water remains relatively low in France. On its site, the supplier Eau de Paris estimates that despite a price increase of 23.10% in ten years in the capital, the expenditure of a Parisian family of 4 people reaches an average of 1.80 euros per day. On the scale of France, the national average cost of a cubic meter of water is established at 4.30 euros, and a family of 4 uses an average of 410 liters of water per day (one cubic meter is 1000 liters).
Several associations of elected officials have nevertheless called for government assistance in recent weeks to stem this umpteenth increase in the bill for consumers and municipalities. Currently, the water management and distribution networks are not covered by the tariff shield set up by the State, and therefore pay full price for electricity.
