ABSTRACT
Being part of a society entails the sharing of legal rights, values and experiences of varying significance (Nora, 2013; Rosanvallon, 2004). The points around which collective identity can begin to crystallize vary from one country to another. They may be secularism, national identity or the organization of public services, but polity and politicians are always present in the picture. The argument developed in this chapter is that even in activities with a long history, which may seem stable, nothing is ever frozen. Needs change, new technologies appear and politicians have to redefine their meaning.1 It is therefore necessary for the factors that underpin community identity to be regularly renewed. When it comes to this primary matter of constructing meaning in collective action, urban technical systems raise an interesting problem. They represent long-term constructs that cut across the shorttermism of contemporary societies; this is equally true of the directly material components – the infrastructures – as of the institutions. With time, these collective constructs become natural and the original political principles and choices fade, so that the history of urban networks could be cited as an illustration of the theory of path dependency (Thelen, 2003). In fact, these constructs are less technical and natural than might initially be thought. The political principles they embody need to be reactivated periodically in order to make action intelligible and legitimate. The municipalization of water in Paris in 2010 offers a textbook instance of these general questions. Its story first of all illustrates the thesis of sociotechnical systems that build up over time to form “models” with institutions and main actors (Lorrain, 2005). Around 1850, when it all began, water as a technical system was in its infancy. A new demand was emerging in the big cities – everything was started from scratch. Paris was a symbolic arena in which the encounter between state, city and the very new Compagnie Générale des Eaux would take place. This story can be broken down into three phases if we consider the legal framework. The first long phase, from 1860 to 1984, corresponds to the history of the invention – and then the stabilization – of a model.2 This applies to the morphology of the technical system and to the lifestyles of Parisians with the arrival of household water: hygiene and progress (Goubert, 1986; Jacquot, 2002). It also applies to relations between
the city and the operator, in which a contractual system was developed and bedded in. The second phase began in 1984, with the signature of a 25-year licence contract that extended the partnership. The French urban service model reached its apogee, with progress in the institutions and in the prerogatives of the operators; Lyonnaise des Eaux joined its main competitor to manage water in Paris. The third phase – the municipalization in 2010 – represents an absolute counterpoint to this 150-year history. How should it be understood? Was the move away from an urban service model in Paris that may have seemed stable a punishment for operator failure? Does it reflect a clear desire among Paris politicians to adopt a different way of organizing urban services? Or is it perhaps an illustration of the permanent political dimension of these activities? In this case is it the outcome of shifting political alliances or should it be seen as the reflection of a deeper need to overhaul the founding principles?
