Générale Des Eaux Group

Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE) started as a French water company, created on December 14th 1853 by an imperial decree of Napoleon III. Since 1976, CGE started to extend its activities to other sectors with a series of takeovers. In 1983 CGE helped to found Canal+, the first pay-TV channel in France, and in the 1990s, they began expanding into telecommunications and mass media. In 1998 it was renamed to Vivendi, later, between 2003 and 2005 to Veolia. Veolia has activities in television, film, video game, book publishing, print press, communication, tickets and video hosting services.