Free is running out of patience with the French authorities; it’s taking forever to get AI data centers approved.

In early June, beneath the wood-paneled ceilings of Versailles, Masayoshi Son (Softbank) was promising up to 75 billion euros worth of AI data centers for France, with a presidential handshake to top it off. The Choose France 2026 summit closed with 93 billion euros worth of announcements. Three months later, on the occasion of its half-year results, Free’s parent company is a reminder of a less photogenic reality.In the same country, an operator that has already financed everything can wait two and a half years before the first shovel hits the ground.

Land, 700 megawatts and 4 billion: all that’s missing is the rubber stamp

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in the group’s strategy. The group claims 50% growth in its cloud business and confirms that it has secured two French sites for its future data centers. The main one will be located on the site of the former EDF thermal power plant in Montereau-Vallée-de-la-Seine. Expect around twenty hectares, an electrical connection capable of reaching 700 megawatts and approximately €4 billion in investment, backed by OpCore, the joint venture set up with the InfraVia fund.

The land and electricity are therefore secured; permits, however, are the state’s responsibility, and Thomas Reynaud, the group’s chief executive officer, is no longer hiding his irritation. Expect “two to two and a half years” before construction of a site of this size can begin, even without a single appeal being filed. In passing, he concedes that “it’s just the application of the law, it applies to everyone”, while judging that “one can regret” such slowness (the euphemism is polite, but the weariness is audible).

This impatience has been brewing for months. As early as January, the executive was talking about delays that could reach three years, calling for streamlined procedures for already grid-connected industrial brownfields and submitting nineteen recommendations to the state.Among the sticking points, the wildlife-and-flora study known as the “four seasons” study, which can take up to a year on its own (a title very much in the spirit of Vivaldi, and somewhat less compatible with the roadmap of a GPU operator).

A mobile network takes years to deploy, while an AI model becomes obsolete in a matter of months, and the group’s entire problem lies in that mismatch. Obtaining authorization for a data center in two and a half years is a bit like ordering shoes for a child who is growing fast: by the time they are delivered, the size no longer fits.

Why France banks the billions while making its own operators wait

Against the backdrop of these announcements, the Choose France initiative is enough to make people grimace: SoftBank has signed a firm commitment of €45 billion for 3.1 gigawatts in Hauts-de-France by 2031. Brookfield has put up €30 billion, while the Emirati fund MGX and Bpifrance have lined up around €7.5 billion for a second computing campus, following the one launched with Mistral AI in Fouju, Seine-et-Marne (the same department as Montereau—coincidence has a fine sense of detail). According to the CEO of Schneider Electric, France’s data-center capacity was capped at around 1.5 gigawatts at the end of 2025: the announced construction projects promise to multiply it.

The international comparison does not help: across the Atlantic, a comparable data center, sometimes powered by gas turbines, can secure its green light in under a year.Thomas Reynaud introduces another idea into the debate, namely a European preference for allocating strategic resources, starting with those industrial sites already connected to high-capacity electricity grids. The very sites foreign funds have been fighting over for the past year.

In Montereau, an expedited connection scheme set up by the government offers hope for a first commissioning by 2027, if utility poles keep pace. The next announcements will come on October 13 at ai-PULSE, Scaleway’s annual conference; Kyutai, the research laboratory funded by Xavier Niel, is expected to present its work on “world models,” models designed to better represent the real world.

For you, the issue goes beyond Iliad’s financial accounts: AI hosted in France, with data that does not cross the Atlantic, now depends less on GPU prices than on the pace at which utility poles are deployed.

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Source: Univers Freebox