Overview of the French market and French legal framework applicable to Data Centres

Last February 2025, investment announcements poured in at the AI Summit in Paris. 109 billion euros were to be allocated to the AI Action Plan, France's AI development strategy. Most of the funds will be dedicated for data centre projects, necessary to train and operate AI, whose computing chips cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Among the investors, the United Arab Emirates has pledged between €30 and 50 billion for the construction of Europe's largest data centre, with a capacity of up to one gigawatt. 

Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian pension fund, has announced a €20 billion investment programme to support the deployment of AI infrastructure in France. 15 billion of the investment will be directed towards the construction of data centres and led by Data4, one of its portfolio companies and one of Europe's largest data centre development companies, based in Paris. Data4 plans to build more than 500 MW of data centre capacity in several French regions, with the ambition of tripling this capacity by 2030.^[1] Along those announcements there are many other projects ongoing in France launched by Goodman, DLR and the likes.

On the public research side, the Jean Zay supercomputer reached a new milestone with the inauguration of its fourth extension in May, quadrupling its computing power to 125.9 million billion operations per second. Countless areas of research and innovation will be able to benefit free of charge from this increased power through open research: biomedical research, astronomical data analysis, autonomous driving, design of new materials, new energies, agriculture, decision support, etc.

The defence sector has demonstrated its powerful AI capabilities when it inaugurated a supercomputer, the largest in Europe for classified computing, on 4 September 2025 at Mont Valérien. It will be operated by the Ministerial Agency for Artificial Intelligence in Defence (Amiad). This supercomputer is at the heart of the military robotics strategy on which the Pendragon project depends. The objective of this program is to position France among the world's top three powers in the defence AI race.^[2]

Private players have also shown incredible growth. At the beginning of September 2025, Mistral AI successfully raised over €1.7 billion for a post-investment valuation of €11.7 billion.^[3] Continuing its rapid acceleration, Mistral has announced that it is building a state-of-the-art data centre in Essonne, near Paris, to power its AI models, worth €1 billion.

However, data centres are extremely resource hungry. To provide a framework for the sector's expansion and steer it towards more a sustainable growth, Europe has adopted the Energy Efficiency Directive, which prescribes measures to reduce their environmental impact.

France transposed this Directive in April 2025, and most of its provisions will come into force on 01 October 2025, with the following key innovations:

• Loi DDAUE ^[4] - Introduction of European obligations in terms of the energy performance of Data Centres.

Law no. 2025-391 containing various provisions for adapting to European Union law in the economic, financial, environmental, energy, transport, health and movement of persons fields (known as the "DDADUE" law) was adopted on 30 April 2025 and adds a number of obligations to the Energy Code: 

• Creation of a specific energy performance framework for data centres (with a dedicated chapter (art. L236-1 to L236-3 of the French Energy Code)^[5] );
• Definition of a data centre: "A data centre is defined as a structure or group of structures used to host, connect and operate computer systems or servers and related equipment for the storage, processing or distribution of data and for related activities". (art. L236-1 of the French Energy Code);
• Exclusion of critical sectors: These new obligations will not apply to sectors considered "vital" or linked to defence. They will, however, apply to data centres hosted by banks, businesses and research centres (art. L236-1 of the French Energy Code);
• Creation of new reporting obligations: Data centres with a capacity of more than 500 kW must now (i) submit administrative, environmental and energy information to the European Commission on a digital platform and (ii) make it public (NB - the details will be set out in a subsequent regulation, not yet available) (art. L236-1 II. of the French Energy Code); 
• Mandatory recovery of waste heat: Data centres with a capacity of more than 1 MW are now required to install systems to recover the waste heat they generate (NB - the details will be set out in a Conseil d’Etat decree, not yet available) (art. L236-2 of the French Energy Code);
• Carrying out a cost-benefit analysis: Data centres, in the same way as service facilities and industrial installations, will now have to carry out cost-benefit analyses of the economic feasibility of improving the energy efficiency of heat and cooling supplies (art. L233-5 of the energy code), (NB - the details will be set out in a subsequent decree, not yet available);
• Impact studies for works, structures and development projects: A pre-existing obligation, the new article L211-10 of the French Energy Code extends its scope by specifying that projects involving an investment of more than €100 million must take into account "energy efficiency and sobriety solutions". (NB - the details will be set out in a decree, not yet available);
• Reinforced system of penalties: Introduction of a system of penalties combining formal notices and administrative fines that can be made public under the "name and shame" principle for non-compliant operators (art. L236-3 of the French Energy Code);
• Energy audits: Introduced by the loi DDAUE, these do not just concern data centres. Legal entities whose annual electricity consumption is 23.6 gWh or more will have to set up an energy management system. Every four years, entities consuming 2.75gWh and not having an energy management system will have to carry out energy audits of their activities. They will also have to declare their final energy consumption (art. L233-1 of the French Energy Code).

• Obstacles to the installation of Data Centres.
  • Local citizen opposition - Associations ("le Nuage étaient sous nos pieds") are organising themselves against the construction of data centres in France.^[6] The latter should not be underestimated: a report from 2025^[7] indicates that data centre projects worth an estimated $64 billion have been blocked or delayed in the United States since 2023.^[8]

[1] Brookfield AM, Brookfield to Invest €20 billion in France's AI Infrastructure | Brookfield Asset Management (BAM), February 10, 2025

[2] Ministère des Armées,  Inauguration of the most powerful classified supercomputer dedicated to AI in Europe | Ministère des Armées, 05 September 2025.

[3] BPI France, Mistral AI raises €1.7 billion to accelerate technological advances thanks to AI - Bpifrance | Presse, 09 September 2025.

[4] Sibylle Weiler, Olivier Fazio, Bird & Bird " Loi DDADUE : dispositions en matière de droit de l'énergie et de l'environnement - Bird & Bird ", 09 May 2025.

[5] Please note! Some of these obligations will be included in the forthcoming version of the Energy Code (01 October on Légifrance), at which point they will become applicable. In the meantime, they can be consulted individually: Chapter VI: The energy performance of data centres (Article L236-1) - Légifrance; Article L236-2 - Energy Code - Légifrance; Article L236-3 - Energy Code - Légifrance.

[6] La quadrature du net, "Simplification" law: stop the data centre boom! -  La Quadrature du Net, 9 April 2025.

[7] Data Center Watch, $64 billion of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local opposition - Data Center Watch.

[8] Eddy Nathan, Data Center Knowledge, "Local Opposition Hinders More Data Center Construction Projects", 15 May 2025.