France is often seen as the leader in fashion, and this is not limited to clothes – its national drink is Perrier Water, and the city says that “in France, Perrier isn’t a luxury, it’s a right!”

While this may sound a tad pretentious, the government says the installation of swanky new drinking fountains around the city to provide fizzy water on tap, for free is for pure reasons. While it may seem like classic French one-upmanship, the City maintains that it is doing so in an effort to reduce plastic waste by providing fizzy water drinkers with stations to re-fill, rather than having to keep buying new bottles.

The fountains have been tested in various spots around the city since 2010, and have received plenty of positive feedback over the years.

The French are the world’s eighth biggest consumers of bottled water according to statistics from the Earth Policy Institute. It is because of this that the capital’s public water supplier Eau de Paris’ have increased their efforts to wean Parisians off their bottled water habit.

There is a global problem caused by billions of plastic water bottles that are not being recycled and therefore end up in landfills where they leach poison into the earth for thousands of years.

Officials have now committed to installing at least one fountain – known locally as a “La Petillante”, which translates to ‘she who sparkles‘ – in each of Paris’ 20 arrondissements, or neighbourhoods.

France has been stamping down on carbonated drinks of the unhealthy variety in a bid to address obesity, and slapped a tax on sweet fizzy beverages in 2012; it also made it illegal for restaurants to sell unlimited amounts of it at a fixed price or for free this year.

All we can say about the encouragement to drink water is Vive La France!

Get bottled water coolers and mains water coolers from Living-Water in London.