Abstract
This chapter examines the compliance and enforcement issues relating to groundwater policy in France. It is based on a review of existing grey and scientific literature and a series of interviews conducted by the authors with enforcement officers in 16 French counties. The chapter starts with a presentation of the existing regulations governing groundwater abstraction (Sect. 23.1), followed by a description of how the law enforcement agencies are organised (Sect. 23.2) and how they operate (Sect. 23.3). It then describes the infractions observed by regulators and analyses the factors that may explain compliance and non-compliance (Sect. 23.4). The problems that limit the effectiveness of enforcement are discussed.
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Notes
- 1.
Decree of 11th September 2003, which implements Decree n° 96–102 of 2nd February 1996 and lays down the general provisions applicable to drill holes, boreholes and the construction of wells or underground installations subject to a declaration pursuant to articles L. 214-1 to L. 214-3 of the environmental code and pertaining to category 1.1.1.0 of the nomenclature annexed in the modified Decree n° 93-743 of 29th March 1993.
- 2.
Article R214-1 of the environmental code.
- 3.
Decree n° 2012–34 of 11th January 2012 relating to the simplification, reform and harmonisation of the environmental code for the provisions pertaining to the administrative police and the judiciary police. JORF n°0010 of 12th January 2012, page 564.
- 4.
In particular, Directive 2008/99/CE regarding the application of criminal law to environmental protection, which led to an organisational reform of the police, procedures and sanctions.
- 5.
Although this approach should be limited to minor cases, reports suggest that it is used far too frequently (Court of Auditors annual report, Cour des comptes, 2010).
- 6.
Published in the JORF on 12th January 2012.
- 7.
In France, there are no specialised judges, offences that have an impact on nature and the environment are dealt with by generalist magistrates and jurisdictions.
- 8.
Barone (2018) has shown that these memorandum are only efficient if there is a true commitment from their signatory to implement them, which is not systematically the case.
- 9.
The Court of Auditors criticised the fact that recourse to criminal fines was too systematic. According to Barone (to be published) and van Bosterhaudt (2014), recourse to criminal fines encourages economic actors to commit environmental crimes because the financial profit generated by non-compliance with the regulatory constraint is far greater than the fine imposed in the event of a criminal fine.
- 10.
In 2013, ONEMA reported 19 public statements expressing offensive comments about the water police, most of which came from professional farming organisations (Legrand et al., 2015).
- 11.
According to the Court of Auditors, the number of inspections undertaken by the water and environmental police was reduced by half between 2011 and 2015 (Cour des comptes, 2017).
- 12.
See Jevakhoff, Barthod, Cartier, Delaunay, and Lavarde (2018) for a discussion on the need to rethink the spatial distribution of police staff at the AFB and ONEMA across French territory.
- 13.
Departments (counties) 18, 28, 37, 45, 79, 85 and 86 in Fig. 23.4.
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Montginoul, M., Rinaudo, JD., Alcouffe, C. (2020). Compliance and Enforcement: The Achilles Heel of French Water Policy. In: Rinaudo, JD., Holley, C., Barnett, S., Montginoul, M. (eds) Sustainable Groundwater Management. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32766-8_23
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