Macron's office immersed in a large mineral water scandal – politico

According to the Senate report on Monday, Nestlé pursued a “transaction” approach. It announced its misconduct with the French government and instead offered the use of micrometers with 0.2 micrometers.

Up to this point, the French health authorities had found that each filtration would risk the risk of changing the water composition below a threshold of 0.8 microns. In 2023, however, the French government allowed local authorities to loosen the regulatory framework through executive measures in order to enable the finer microfiltration method.

The report from Monday is the result of a parliamentary investigation by the socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille in the practices of the French water industry. Ouizille's investigation, which was followed by the publication of the press reports last year, also wanted to determine to what extent the Macron office was known to Nestlé Waters' practices.

Ouizille and the investigative committee summon Macron's former chief of staff Alexis Kohler, who served in this post from 2017 to last month and was often referred to as “the second brain of the President”, but Kohler refused to appear between the executive and the legal authority.

The French president's office nevertheless shared 74 pages of documents with discussions between the employees of the President and Nestlé and his lobbyists with the investigative committee.

“At the highest level of government, the decision to approve the microfiltration under the 0.8 micron threshold was made,” says the report published on Monday. “The presidency knew at least since 2022 that Nestlé had cheated for years.”

During a press conference on Monday, Ouizille insisted that Kohler had “met with Nestlé lobbyists several times” and that “the Elysée was at least” aware of what happened “.

This article has been updated.