France's government hid Nestlé's illegal treatment of 'natural mineral water' from the EU, local authorities and the public, a Senate inquiry found
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On 31 August 2021 Nestlé Waters admitted to the industry minister's office and the consumer-fraud agency DGCCRF that it used banned UV and activated-carbon treatments at its Vosges and Gard plants (Vittel, Hépar, Contrex, Perrier). The Senate commission of inquiry, whose report was adopted 14 May 2025, found the State was slow to refer the matter to prosecutors (the first referral came from a regional health agency in October 2022, the DGCCRF's only in February 2025), did not suspend non-compliant production, had ministerial offices instruct from October 2021 that local state services not be involved, never informed the European Commission between August 2021 and January 2024 despite an EU directive requiring it, and in a February 2023 interministerial decision implicitly approved a 0.2-micron microfiltration whose legality is itself contested. The commission called the concealment 'a deliberate strategy', and its rapporteur put the fraud tied to the 'natural mineral water' label at about €3 billion.
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