Around 800 Protest at Étrechet Against Google’s Planned First French Data Centre
About 800 people gathered at Étrechet, near Châteauroux in the Indre, on Saturday, October 17, to protest against Google’s plan to build its first data centre in France on some 200 hectares of the Ozans business zone, France 3 Centre-Val de Loire reported. The rally, organised by the citizens’ collective Ozans dire non, followed a Google press conference earlier in the week that did little to calm local doubts.
Speakers focused on climate and water. Jérémie Godet, an ecologist vice-president of the Centre-Val de Loire region, said a project of this size was ill-suited to a future of more frequent droughts and heatwaves, and warned against a local economy that becomes over-specialised. Google has said the first fill of the site’s cooling circuit will need 1,000 cubic metres of water. Protesters also asked for independent studies, saying none had been attached to the file.
The dispute has already reshaped local politics. Several Étrechet councillors, including the mayor, resigned in September, saying they had no access to information on the project. Former deputy mayor Marie-Pierre Chabenat-Canals told France 3 that elected officials had realised how powerless they were when big projects are decided for small territories. The former owner of the farmland, Marc Lyster, said his farm had shrunk from 106 hectares to 24 and that seeing a data centre planned there was another blow.
What it means in practice
Opponents argue the project contradicts the government’s own sovereignty message. In April, ministers David Amiel and Anne Le Hénanff said the state must reduce its dependence on American tools, a push reflected in the choice of Twake.ai as a recommended sovereign workplace for more than 2,500 public bodies. MEP David Cormand said such sites strengthen the sovereignty of US multinationals rather than France’s. The protest echoes the appeals filed against the Fouju Campus IA data centre in Seine-et-Marne.
The fight has also reached Paris. On October 8, deputies François Ruffin, Cyrielle Chatelain, Laurent Lhardit and Philippe Latombe presented a draft resolution calling for a five-year moratorium on data centres run by non-European players, public debates wherever projects are under way, and publication of their water, energy and land-use impacts, La Nouvelle République reported. The text still needs signatures before it can be scheduled.
What to watch: the first public meeting on the project, set for November 9 in Châteauroux and open to remote participants, and whether Google publishes detailed water and power figures before then.