This article aims to examine the potential transformation of practices triggered by the introduction of performance indicators in the water utilities in France in the late 2000s. We show that the transformative dynamic that, on the face of it, is brought about by this new governance tool is put into question by the multitude of brakes (political, economic, social and environmental) impeding its deployment. The article analyses the limits of the system by applying Foucault’s governmentality approach, defined by the analytical framework of the management tools as reformulated by Lascoumes and Le Galès.

Points for practitioners

In particular, following the adoption of the Water Framework Directive in 2000, European states have had to streamline their drinking water and sanitation utilities. New methods of regulation, borrowing more markedly than in the past from market logics, have thus gradually taken hold. In this article, we examine the controversial performance indicators of the water and sanitation utilities, whose effectiveness and legitimacy are regularly questioned. We seek to clarify the structuring of the current debate and identify possible ways to improve their functioning on the basis of the French case.