French Farmer Takes On Nestle Over Water… Needs Lawyer Fees

Didier Thouvenin is a farmer in Vittel, France — home to one of Nestlé’s massive water-guzzling projects.

Together with other whistleblowers, he exposed that Nestlé was illegally dumping huge amounts of plastic and chemical waste, forcing it to admit to creating NINE massive dumping sites.

But instead of cleaning up the mess and apologizing to local residents, Nestlé filed a legal complaint against Didier for trespassing! We know it won’t stop there — there were 11 other activists with Didier that day and Nestlé is famous for doing everything they can to silence opposition to protect its profits.

Didier just told us he URGENTLY needs to secure a lawyer to fight back. If enough of us chip in, we can create a legal defense fund for Didier and other brave activists standing up to Nestlé… can you help?

Here’s what happened: in 2014, Didier and other local activists entered a field owned by Nestlé through an open fence, then dug a hole to find waste that was illegally and secretly buried underground. They filmed the whole operation, filled the hole, and left without causing any damage.

As a result of their bravery, even more dumping sites were revealed — putting Nestlé on the defensive. But now instead of taking responsibility — Nestlé is coming after Didier!

It’s not just illegal dumping that’s the problem. Nestlé pumps 800 million litres a year of precious groundwater out of Vittel, to bottle and sell for a huge markup. It’s stolen so much water that the local community now faces a water shortage, all while Nestlé continues to pump them dry!

But with your help, Didier can stop Nestlé from operating with impunity. Winning will expose the devastation and help to finally bring accountability for the injustices it’s caused — and any extra funds we raise will power our global fights against water theft.

But Didier is a farmer, in a small, rural part of the country where Nestlé rules almighty. Without support from our community he’ll be bullied and bankrupted — and Nestlé will get away with stopping at nothing to protect its profits once again.

Our community has been working closely with local activists in Vittel to fight back against Nestlé since 2019. First, we collected funds when no one else was to empower them to organize. And last year, when Nestlé tried to force the local community to build a pipeline to bring more water to the area, SumOfUs joined forces with local groups and killed the project. This is the next stage in our fight to protect our water from corporate grabs — let’s win again!