The project's scale is unusual even by hyperscale standards. A 1.4 GW grid connection requirement — equivalent to a nuclear reactor — and annual consumption estimated at up to 10.5 TWh, against SNCF Réseau's 7 TWh, would make Campus IA France's single largest electricity consumer. Behind that headline figure sit 613 backup generators with a combined 4.6 GW capacity, requiring roughly 30,000 tonnes of fuel per year, ideally hydrotreated vegetable oil but potentially conventional diesel. That generator fleet is roughly equivalent to EDF's entire French thermal power plant capacity.
The legal action focuses on those generators and two other concerns flagged in a report from regional environmental authority the MRAE: micro-leaks of persistent pollutants from the cooling fluids required to keep the buildings operational, and heat generated by the site, only part of which would be recovered.
FNE's Jean-Louis Dupont put the opposition bluntly: "We are mobilising against… these new data centres." In his comments to Montel, he described the project as "a headlong race to process big data" that had entered territory he considered irrational.
The French government takes a different view. The EUR 30-50bn project, financed by UAE investment fund MGX, is backed as part of France's ambition to become a European AI hub. It moved rapidly through public inquiry and consultation, and the Seine-et-Marne prefecture authorised construction of three buildings in the first phase last week.
Political opinion in the National Assembly reflects the same division. Arnaud Saint-Martin of La France Insoumise questioned whether burning France's decarbonised power to run infrastructure serving US companies was in the public interest: "If the aim is to store cryptocurrencies and use our decarbonised power to accelerate business [for American or Middle Eastern companies] that is highly questionable." Jean-Louis Thieriot of Les Républicains made the counterargument — hosting such centres domestically protects French and European data from foreign access, and the project strengthens France's negotiating position with major foreign powers.
One moderating data point: grid operator RTE told Montel that data centres connected to its network over the past two to three years were on average using only about 20% of their requested capacity, suggesting the 10.5 TWh projection may represent a planning ceiling rather than an operational certainty. RTE also noted that data centres would account for only around 4% of total French consumption by 2035.
At a parliamentary hearing in July, a Bpifrance representative — the state investment bank holds a minority stake — said most demand for the plots was coming from US companies, though what data will actually be hosted remains publicly unspecified.
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