Mineral water fraud: Aurélien Rousseau acknowledges an “error of judgment” but denies any “health scandal”

Place publique MP (party co-chaired by Raphaël Glucksmann) Aurélien Rousseau, former chief of staff to Elisabeth Borne at Matignon and former health minister, acknowledged on Tuesday 20 May "an error of judgment" in the case of treated natural mineral waters, nevertheless asserting that there was "no health scandal" .

"When we look back and see the situation today, it is better to be clear and admit, yes, an error of judgment," said on France Inter the man who was Elisabeth Borne's first collaborator between May 2022 and July 2023, before becoming Minister of Health until December of the same year. "It's serious because it's the consumers who paid the bill, but they didn't pay the bill on their health," he insisted.

The case of illicit treatments used for certain mineral waters, revealed by Le Monde and Radio France in January 2024, was the subject of a "cover-up by the State" as part of "a deliberate strategy" , accused the Senate commission of inquiry into the practices of bottled water manufacturers in its report on Monday.

"When I was contacted as chief of staff, I was told that in 2021 Nestlé came to the State and said, 'We are applying treatments to water that we know are illegal, give us time,'" Aurélien Rousseau said on Tuesday. "What is certain is that in 2025 Nestlé has not yet complied, so today it should not have the right to use the name 'mineral water,'" he added.

But, he qualified, "if, in 2022, Nestlé had come to see the authorities and [knowing] that there was no health risk, we had decided to say 'ah well, it's over, you're no longer mineral water', I think that Nestlé would probably have said; as they say today: 'We're going to close these sources' ." As a result, "we would have been called crazy technocrats," he said, given the risks that this posed to employment. Today, he said, Nestlé must "be held accountable, including before the courts, in matters of commercial deception."

More severely, the national secretary of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel, was outraged by the government's "interference" " with industrialists who work directly with the Elysée Palace . " "It's scandalous, the courts must take action," he declared on RTL.