Segro · Le Bourget data center, Le Bourget, Île-de-France

Segro's planned data center at the former H&M warehouse in Le Bourget, Seine-Saint-Denis, France, remains blocked after the administrative court of Montreuil refused on July 28, 2026 to suspend the new mayor's withdrawal of its building permit. The judge found the plans included a building more than 23 meters high in its central section, breaking the height rules in the local plan, so the mayor had been obliged to withdraw the permit, actu.fr reported.

The Segro data center would have converted a 3.7-hectare former industrial site into three technical buildings with 25,300 square meters of floor space, 33 backup diesel generators and a 75MW grid connection. Its expected consumption of about 526 GWh a year was more than three times the whole commune's consumption in 2019, DCmag reported from the environmental authority's review. That review, by the regional environmental authority (MRAe), questioned the use of R1234ze, a refrigerant in the PFAS family of forever chemicals, and why Segro planned to recover heat from only 12MW of the 75MW the site would use.

The former mayor, Jean-Baptiste Borsali, granted the permit on March 13, 2026, pointing to the jobs and cheaper heat for the district network. Residents had campaigned for months against it, and a petition passed 18,000 signatures, more than the commune's population, warning of harm to nearby homes, schools and daycare centers. The newly elected mayor, Mehdi Nezzar, withdrew the permit on June 12, saying he refused to let Le Bourget become a place where heavy industrial infrastructure keeps piling up at the expense of residents' health, environment and quality of life, and that he rejected the project in its current form.

The site would have been the 30th data center in Seine-Saint-Denis, where the state and the Île-de-France region are both pushing for more of them. Segro is also working on a 70MW data center in Val-de-Marne, southeast of Paris.

The July ruling was an emergency decision on an application brought by Segro, and the judge did not rule on the merits of the case. The town says it will keep defending its position in the proceedings.