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The purpose of this article is to measure the effects of delegating French water utilities to the private sector, on residential water price. We apply a treatment effects approach to a sample of 3.782 French local communities. Our results show that a significant share of the price difference between private operators and public operators (0.33 euros per cubic meter on average) can be explained by the operating conditions faced by the private operators. The latter, on average, have to cope with more difficult operating conditions than public operators.