Renée-Lise Rothiot: The woman who challenged water giants.
By Activist Renée-Lise’s death has fuelled France’s ongoing water rights battle
Paris: In early January 2025, the death of Renée-Lise Rothiot, a 70-year-old environmental activist, circulated widely across activist and media networks dedicated to ecology, and more specifically to water protection, which was her area of expertise. She apparently committed suicide in the freezing water of Lac de Pierre-Percée, a lake in the north-east of France on the night of January 4-5, 2025.
This news offers an opportunity to reflect, through the story of her struggles, on the current state of activism, its repression, and the unfolding state scandals involving major multinational corporations, reaching as far as the President of the French Republic himself.
But let us begin by saying a few words about Renée-Lise Rothiot. Like many others, she dreamed of a better world, and she devoted her life, alongside her husband Bernard, to helping others, first as a doctor, and later as an employee of the French social security system. By her own account, these experiences were a source of disappointment. The social security system in France is a major institution that coordinates a nationwide network of economic solidarity to meet workers’ healthcare needs.
However, Renée-Lise and Bernard joined the system at a time of significant economic change: the rise of neoliberalism. This economic ideology—made famous by Margaret Thatcher’s declaration that “there is no alternative”—has had wide-reaching consequences globally: the financialization of the economy, the replacement of democratic state governance by market-based logic, and the flexibilization of labour.
In practice, the neoliberal framework results in reduced public spending and increased inequality in access to healthcare, education, and justice. For someone like Renée-Lise, working in social security, the neoliberal era meant having to shut down hospitals rather than open them. This is why Renée-Lise, together with Bernard, chose to wait until retirement to fully engage in activism.
From Vittel to Scandal: France’s Water Crisis Laid Bare
Renée-Lise’s focus on water came quite naturally, as she was born in the town of Vittel. The name may evoke a brand of bottled mineral water, but it is, first and foremost, a town—one whose history is intrinsically tied to the industrial era. In the 19th century, many members of the industrial bourgeoisie would travel to the Vosges region to enjoy thermal spa treatments. The waters of the area were believed to have therapeutic properties, though science has never been able to prove any significant difference from other waters in the country.
One of these visitors, Louis Bouloumié, was the first to recognise Vittel’s commercial potential and obtained authorisation to exploit the spring in 1855. From that moment, the small business steadily grew, attracting visitors from all over France and eventually from abroad. Bottling became industrialised by the end of the century, and this industry began to shape nearly every aspect of life in the town. Land was privatised; members of the Bouloumié family, owners of the factory, also served as mayors from father to son for generations; and the town’s architecture was designed around thermal activity, with input from the renowned architect Charles Garnier.
Vittel’s Myth Unravelled: Water, Power, And Corporate Greed
Even Vittel’s historical memory was reshaped to serve industrial interests. The town is often said to have ancient Roman roots, supposedly visited by Emperor Vitellius—a legend meant to confirm the unique quality of its water. But once again, historians are clear: there is no source confirming this story, apart from a book written by Pierre Bouloumié, son of Louis Bouloumié, for his grandchildren. It is, therefore, in all likelihood, a marketing myth that has become conventional wisdom.
It’s important to understand that in France, water access is strictly regulated, and by default, tap water is considered drinkable unless otherwise indicated. This means that persuading a citizen to purchase water they could almost get for free requires considerable ingenuity—bottled first in glass, then in plastic, which makes it less healthy.
All this is to say that Renée-Lise was born in a very specific place, one marked by a long history of dispossession.
During the second half of the 20th century, water exploitation intensified until the shift to plastic bottles required the entry of the multinational company Nestlé Waters into the capital structure, eventually becoming the majority stakeholder in 1992.
As in many other parts of the world, the financialization of the economy significantly influenced the fate of the town. It was in this context that Renée-Lise and Bernard decided to move back to Vittel to wage their fight against the industrial exploitation of water.
There was much to do in a context that was far from welcoming. Criticising the Vittel plant, according to their detractors, meant threatening the local economy—perhaps even the very identity of the town. But the golden age of thermal spas was long gone. People no longer travel to Vittel to heal; instead, its water is consumed on the other side of the world in the pursuit of ever-increasing profits, all at a significant environmental cost.
Plastic Promises: Vittel’s Water Exploitation Sparks Outrage
During my first visit, Renée-Lise and Bernard took me to see an illegal dump site in the middle of nature. Thousands of cubic meters of plastic bottles had accumulated there over decades, to the point that a layer of soil and trees had begun to grow over it.
Yet all it took was a light scratch of the surface to reveal the plastic underneath—half-burnt and left to rot in vain. This pattern, Bernard explained, is common wherever a thermal station begins large-scale water exploitation with a plastic bottling plant.
And that’s not all. Overexploitation is threatening underground reserves, and the water tables have dropped so significantly that the Vittel company proposed building a pipeline to reroute the municipal water supply in order to claim the entirety of the resource for its own use.
Tainted Springs: How Renée-Lise Exposed France’s Water Lies
Renée-Lise and Bernard raised the alarm, and the public reaction, particularly in Germany, a major market for Nestlé Waters, pushed the corporate giant to announce a 23% reduction in water withdrawal. In reality, this corresponded to a simple decrease in market demand.
In 2024, a parliamentary inquiry revealed a new scandal tied to the industrial exploitation of water in Vittel. The Swiss multinational reportedly admitted to using banned techniques to maintain the food safety of its bottled mineral waters. The groundwater was, in fact, not as clean as it should have been, with traces, among others, of faecal matter detected.
For water to be classified as mineral, it must flow directly from the ground without any treatment, filtration, or purification. Otherwise, what would distinguish it from ordinary tap water? Implementing secret filtration methods, therefore, exposes Vittel to accusations of fraud.
Macron’s Mess
Investigations also revealed that the French government, including the President of the Republic, may have been aware of the situation as early as 2022, despite recommendations in 2023 from the Director-General of Health to “immediately suspend the authorisation for extraction and bottling of water from Nestlé’s sites in the Vosges.”
On February 4th of this year, President Emmanuel Macron had to publicly deny any favouritism toward Nestlé regarding the non-compliant mineral waters. Nonetheless, the scandal grew deeper when Alexis Kohler, Secretary General of the Élysée Palace, refused, despite the illegality of doing so, to appear before the commission for questioning.
*Vincent Delbos-Klein, PhD, is a Paris-based researcher and has his doctorate in visual sociology.
