In the shadow of the La Courneuve data center, where people garden while talking politics, but little about the Olympic Games

The building looks like a spaceship, squeezed between highways, a few small houses and council flats, a waste sorting plant, scrap metal hangars, a high school and building sites promising comfort and modernity on the outskirts of Paris. Interxion Paris Par8 data center is the largest computer data storage center, or data center, in France in an urban area. It is located in La Courneuve, in the north of Seine-Saint-Denis, on a site developed from 2020, after Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopter), the flagship of the aeronautics industry, moved to the neighboring town of Dugny in 2017, leaving a gigantic wasteland.

The doors of this usually impenetrable place – where seven levels of security protect the servers of clients from the private and public sectors – were opened ajar in June by Fabrice Coquio, CEO of Digital Realty France (formerly Interxion, acquired by the American group Digital Realty in 2022). Because this infrastructure, often presented as “strategic” by industry players, with 40,000 square metres of storage and cabling rooms (the equivalent of roughly seven football pitches), is of critical importance in the context of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OPG), this data storage pioneer was keen to emphasise.

Digital Realty France has built the largest data center in France on the former Airbus Helicopters site. June 13, 2024 in La Courneuve. CAMILLE MILLERAND/DIVERGENCE FOR “LE MONDE” Fabrice Coquio, CEO of Digital Realty, in a storage room open for demonstration, June 13, 2024 in La Courneuve. CAMILLE MILLERAND/DIVERGENCE FOR “LE MONDE”

With the buzzing of servers in the background, Fabrice Coquio explains: “Data flows are expected to be quadrupled compared to the Tokyo Games”due to the increase in event videos, sports betting, and even teleworking favored by a certain number of companies during the period.

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This overheating will not result in additional recruitment, however, confides the manager. The site will have to operate with its usual 90 or so employees, “of which 40% come from the Plaine Commune urban community [à laquelle appartient La Courneuve] »he explains. Fabrice Coquio claims this local anchoring and the ” social responsibility “ which it confers on industry: this is manifested by the development and maintenance of the public square at the foot of its digital fortress or by the sponsorship of the American football club of La Courneuve.

“Digital is difficult to politicize”

But in view of the weak consultation with the inhabitants, the ultimately limited promises of employment, and the feeling of disbelief surrounding the place… the history of this centre presents similarities with that of the JOP in the “93”, the poorest territory in metropolitan France.

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