In the town of Le Bourget outside Paris, French municipal election candidate Sofiane Milous has vowed to overturn plans for the data center, which he says will exacerbate the heat island effect, increase noise pollution and create few local jobs.
The green-ticketed former judo champion said the race to build artificial intelligence data centers would not solve the problem of industrial decline in working-class towns like his, where manufacturer Alstom closed a factory three decades ago.
“We lost an industry that provided us with livelihoods, even if it was polluted, and now we are faced with this new ‘Industry 4.0’ that does not create jobs for residents,” Mulhouse told Reuters.
French President Emmanuel Macron has argued that data centers are key to regaining control of critical technology infrastructure and last year announced France’s “return to the artificial intelligence race” with plans to invest 109 billion euros ($126 billion) in the private sector.
But local resistance is growing amid concerns about stress on the grid, pollution and the dominance of big U.S. tech companies.
France will hold two rounds of municipal elections from March 15 to 22, with the race for control of more than 35,000 towns and town halls seen as a test of the far right’s ability to deepen its support base ahead of a 2027 presidential election.
A Reuters tally found that candidates in at least 10 towns, including Marseille and Bordeaux, are campaigning against new data centers or calling for a moratorium on construction or greater transparency.
While the events were not decisive in this election, they highlighted voters’ growing concern about the issue, which has become central to smaller communities like Le Bourget.
This mirrors trends in Europe and the United States, where a surge in data center construction has sparked a backlash and turned power use and the footprint of big tech companies into election issues at the local and national levels.
European backlash expands
In Ireland, where data centers consume 22% of the country’s electricity, opposition parties criticized the government for canceling an effective four-year moratorium on grid connections. A hyperscale data center near London faces a legal challenge from campaigners who argue the project fails to take into account the effects of climate change.
France is also cracking down on speculative investors acquiring land for “zombie” projects amid surging demand on its grid, following similar measures in the UK late last year.
Opponents include environmentalists and academics, property owners and labor groups, said Chris Adams, director of technology and policy at the Green Web Foundation.
“This is an unregulated industry that is making people across the political spectrum uncomfortable right now,” he said.
Competition for electricity demand
France is promoting its nuclear power as a relatively cheap, abundant, carbon-free energy source as it competes with neighbors such as the United Kingdom and Germany to attract investment in new data centers.
The Seine-Saint-Denis department approved the Le Bourget project in January, requiring developer Segro Bourget to conduct additional studies on noise and air pollution and hold public meetings. Segro-Bourget had no comment.
Outgoing right-wing mayor Jean-Baptiste Borsali said he trusted the state government’s assessment and that the center could benefit half the town’s residents through heat recovery. He did not respond to a request for an interview.
At the Le Bourget market on the Saturday before the election, several shoppers said the project would determine their votes.
“I signed the petition – it’s right next to the school. I want a park for my children; we don’t have green space,” said teacher Veronique Pernolet, 28, who lives near the former H&M warehouse where the facility is planned.
In Marseille, where undersea cables have turned the port city into a data center hotspot, left-wing candidate Sebastien Burroughs called for a pause.
“We have huge power needs — to power the ships at the docks, to power the ship repair facilities — and these data centers consume a large portion of the available power,” said Burroughs, who is involved with the France Unbowed list.
In Vessous, south of Paris, municipal candidate Philippe de Fruyt has launched a legal challenge to block the expansion of an existing data center used by Amazon, which will be heard in court next week. Amazon had no comment.
legislative push
Although access to the French grid is relatively unrestricted compared with some neighboring countries, new data centers connecting Europe’s major markets take an average of seven to 10 years, according to climate think tank Ember.
A draft law proposes classifying data centers as “projects of national interest”, reducing legal and environmental barriers and allowing the state to bypass local authorities. The bill is currently stuck in the French parliament.
Some academics and politicians say the measures will undermine public input.
“We’ve seen what’s happened in the United States, where so many data centers have been built that there’s been a serious backlash,” said Antoine Devillet of the Cloud At Our Feet advocacy group. “With the rise of artificial intelligence, I think debate will become ubiquitous.”
(1 USD = 0.8651 Euro)
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi and Forrest Crellin; Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Richard Lough and Ros Russell)
