Alexandre Mayol interviewed live at the Paris International Agricultural Show 2025

During the 2025 edition of the Paris International Agricultural Show, Alexandre Mayol, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Lorraine and header of the RENEL Chair, was the guest on the “Terre des hommes” program broadcast on March 2, 2025 by Le Figaro TV.

With Jean-Louis Masson, President of the Var departmental council, he answered questions from Paul Sugy and Madeleine Meteyer on the subject of water scarcity and the means, particularly economic, to be developed to cope with it.

The drought of summer 2022 led to a national awareness of the importance of good water management. “During the drought of 2022, 700 communes were supplied by tanker. Almost 90% of the départements were subject to water use restrictions during this drought”, recalls Alexandre Mayol.

The particular nature of this resource, which is both vital and common, requires us to rethink its economic model over the long term, beyond mere profitability and electoral objectives. “One billion m³ are lost every year through leaks, equivalent to the consumption of 20 million people”. Infrastructure renovation is a necessity that has a cost and must be taken into account when setting the price of water, independently of actual consumption.

Water pricing is a crucial issue for local authorities, which set their own water prices according to a number of factors, resulting in significant disparities between regions. In this context, the price of water can become a decisive “factor of competitiveness or unfair competition between territories” in terms of attractiveness for the industrial and agricultural sectors.