In the Gard, the fear of the bursting of the Perrier bubble
Here, all roads lead to the source. Between the vineyards and the horse meadows, around the market halls or from the A9 motorway, each crossroads indicates the direction "source Perrier". Vergèze, 5,000 inhabitants, lives to the rhythm of the most famous sparkling water in the world. For more than one hundred and sixty years, the small rounded green bottle has been produced here, between Nîmes and Montpellier, in the Gard.
HAS At the end of the 20th century, Perrier was the department's largest employer. Nearly 3,000 employees came to work at the Vergèze factory every day. Although the company now employs only a thousand people, it has shaped the activity of an entire region, conditioned a certain tourist reputation – with 8,000 visitors per year to the Perrier Museum – and enriched the town. "In the 2000s, out of 4 euros of tax collected, 3 euros came from Perrier," explains René Balana, who was mayor of the town of 2001 to 2020. The company had the largest built-up area in the town, more than that of all the inhabitants combined. And it had a reputation for paying its employees well.
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