Opponents of the construction of the Occitanie Tower in Toulouse, dismissed by the Council of State

The building permit for this 40-storey tower, a first in France's 4th largest city without tall buildings, was issued by Toulouse city hall in 2019.

This project by American architect Daniel Libeskind is a green building from top to bottom, with spiral glass facades. The tower must house 11.000 m2 of offices, shops, around a hundred apartments, a panoramic restaurant-bar, a hotel and SNCF premises in the base of the building.

Four associations, including France Nature Environnement (FNE) and "No to the Toulouse skyscraper", as well as three individuals, considering the project disproportionate, unfinished and polluting, had brought the matter before the Council of State in the final instance.

By ruling their appeal inadmissible, the highest French administrative authority confirms the rejection decisions of the Toulouse administrative court in June 2022 and the Toulouse administrative court of appeal in February 2024.

The opponents contested the decision of the appeal court, in particular on its assessment of "the impact study of the project (...) with regard to the vulnerability to climate change of the Occitanie tower", according to the decision of the Council of State.

They considered this study "insufficient", in particular on "the project's needs in water and substrates for the construction and maintenance of its plant part", or on the analysis of "the impact of the tower in terms of parking spaces".

"None of these grounds are such as to allow the appeal to be admitted," concluded the Council of State.

The mayor of Toulouse Jean-Luc Moudenc (LR) sees in the Tour Occitanie an "architectural signature at the height of the ambition of a European metropolis". The Toulouse conurbation, where the headquarters of the European giant Airbus is located, is experiencing strong demographic growth thanks to the aeronautics sector.