farmers and elected officials clash over water quality

Between Rennes and Nantes, in the middle of the fields of Saffré (Loire-Atlantique), two innocuous concrete huts house a vital source for tens of thousands of inhabitants. Fifteen to twenty hours a day, pumps draw water from the water table located 120 m deep.

Not far from there, the drinking water production plant depollutes the precious resource before it reaches homes. This location is one of the five priority catchment points in the Vilaine basin, a river which passes through Rennes and joins the ocean north of Saint-Nazaire. It is located at the bottom of a gently sloping basin, in the hollow of which the village bell tower protrudes. “Every drop of water that falls, trickles and enters the water table which is under Saffré,” explains Jean-Luc Grégoire, vice-president of the drinking water production union and municipal elected official in Saffré.

Since 1998, in the Vilaine basin and its 1.3 million inhabitants, a Local Water Commission has compared the points of view of elected officials, users – including farmers – and the State. In March 2025, the spreading of a corn herbicide around the five catchment points is subject to a ban.

It has still not been adopted, recent agricultural anger having frozen the debates. The decision now threatens to be taken in the middle of the campaign for the municipal elections on March 15 and 22. And if it does not fall, the elected officials will change and the debates will start again.

The norm too

“We don’t want a ban,” says Cédric Henry, president in Ille-et-Vilaine of the FNSEA, the majority agricultural union. The organization is calling for alternative solutions and more time before the ax falls.

The measure affects less than 3% of the agricultural areas of the basin, but can concern, for a single farmer, a good part of his corn fields. This is too much of a standard. Farmers feel indicted and cornered.

But the elected officials are determined. They lead the local drinking water production unions and are legally responsible for its quality. Year after year, they see scientific reports piling up. “The more we look, the more we find new molecules harmful to health,” worries Jean-Luc Grégoire. Depollution is becoming more and more expensive. In Saffré, the cost of installing an activated carbon filtering system, which purifies the water from metabolites (degraded remains) of phytosanitary products, amounted to 550,000 euros. The amount of its renewal will be around 900,000 euros per year.

The municipalities bear these costs, which become a political subject one month before the municipal election. Because consumers are increasingly concerned about water quality. “I no longer drink tap water, we know it is polluted anyway,” says the cashier at a grocery store in Saffré. “Ten years ago, residents only thought about the price of water. Today, they question me about its quality,” confides Fabrice Sanchez, mayor of Massérac, a village in Loire-Atlantique. While in 2015, around thirty people participated in the public consultation, still ongoing, which preceded the ban on the herbicide, 3,500 people responded in 2025.

Hardening of positions

The conflict seems insoluble, especially as national political issues inflame it. In 2022, discussions begin calmly. Last March, the debate heated up and the recent agricultural crisis hardened positions. At the local level, farmers are not so vindictive, even within the FNSEA. “Some called me to tell me they disagreed with the union’s attitude,” assures Michel Demolder, mayor of Pont-Péan (Ille-et-Vilaine) and president of the local water commission. Solutions are sometimes implemented. Around the Saffré catchment point, farmers, with help and support, have reduced the use of phytosanitary products by 30% in four years.

The last meeting before the final adoption of the ban was to take place on December 11, 2025. On that day, tractors prevented the meeting, which was postponed. The final vote was scheduled for February 12. But on January 13, Sébastien Lecornu announced a moratorium on all local water policies. “The state should not have blocked us. It is not him, but us, who bear the responsibility for drinking water to citizens,” says Fabrice Sanchez, mayor of Massérac. It remains to be seen who, after March 22, will inherit the file.