The French are giving up the bottle

On my first date with my husband in Paris many years ago, one of the first things he pointed out was a Wallace fountain in Place Saint Sulpice.

"These are from the rosbifs," he said, meaning a gift from the philanthropist Sir Richard Wallace to the Parisian people in 1872. The story is that Wallace gave the fountains, now an integral part of the Parisian landscape, because he could not find a drinking fountain in the city. Parisians were not drinking enough water.

Things aren't that much different now. Bottled water consumption is down in France, a 6.1 per cent slide since last summer. Partly it's the recession — who wants to pay ¤2 for a bottle when municipal water is fine? But it's also a green thing: one less plastic bottle of Evian is one less piece of trash. Only 56 per cent of the French now buy bottled water — five years ago, 73 per cent did.

I first noticed it last summer at the gym on Rue des Rennes. No one seemed to have those huge bottles of Evian any more. Instead, people were carrying reusable canteens which they filled up at the cooler. Then I noticed that at dinner parties, people had decanters with a slice of lemon floating around rather than a bottle of Badoit.

I stopped buying bottled water last year. It's a relief not to pay all that money and also not to stand in the water aisle at Monoprix, trying to decide between Cointrix (supposedly good for the liver) and Vichy (more alkaline). Not to mention hauling it home.

The only time I splurge on buying water now is at a restaurant if Chateldon is on the menu: Louis XIV had it transported to Versailles and it is renowned for its curative powers. But it's also fabulously expensive, so most of the time I get a carafe of tap water. So do my friends. "Tap is fine," shrugs Gregoire, a journalist. "This isn't Mexico."

There will always be purists who say Paris water — depending on your arrondissement — is too hard. But my doctor says it's fine. And even when my son was a baby, the paediatrician scoffed at the way I used Evian to mix his formula. She said I was wasting money.

I am not alone. Last month the Evian plant had to close down briefly to reduce stock. In these lean times — not to mention environmentally friendly ones — everyone is tightening their belt. In the meantime, I have printed out a list of all the Wallace fountains in Paris. Goodbye, Evian.