3. Water taxation

In 1964, the legislator instituted water agencies (at the time, they were known as "basin financial agencies"). There are now six of these agencies throughout France, all of which are public administrative establishments under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Finance. Their main mission is to manage the river basins within their territorial jurisdiction. There are six river basins in France, each representing one of the six territories drained by water flowing into rivers or lakes. The division of the basins roughly corresponds to that of the major French rivers.

Water agencies have other missions linked to the management of river basins: in particular, they must implement the water development and management scheme (or SAGE, a planning tool dealing with water management and related risks such as flooding or pollution problems),...