Reindustrialization: 55 turnkey sites to build factories in France

From Noyon in Oise to Saint-Paul de La Réunion, via Lannion in Côtes d'Armor, the government published on Tuesday April 16 the list of 55 turnkey industrial sites which will be offered to investors by 2030 , French or foreign, wishing to build factories quickly in France.

Of the 55, five will be ready in 2024, located in Alixan in Drôme, Alloinay in Deux-Sèvres, Arles in Bouches-du-Rhône, Béziers in Hérault and Etrechet in Indre, indicated the ministers of Industry and Ecological Transition, Roland Lescure and Christophe Béchu during a telephone interview with the press.

The others must be decontaminated, demolished, redeveloped or connected to electricity, gas or water networks, and will be ready in two waves, either between 2025 and 2027, or between 2027 and 2030, specified the two ministers.

These announcements come after the vote on the Green Industry law in October, and almost a year after Emmanuel Macron's declarations to the newspaper Challenges unveiling his strategy to "accelerate" the reindustrialization of France and calling for "an agenda of simplification and acceleration of procedures" to allow large investors (data centers, automobiles, or batteries) to set up in France.

More than 60% of the sites "are part of a land recycling dynamic", underlined Mr. Béchu, 30 of them being industrial wastelands, while 25 are located on virgin land "held by the State, local authorities or businesses.

The land "ranges from 3 to 340 hectares", noted Roland Lescure: "We are giving ourselves the means to attract all projects, from industrial SMEs to gigafactories", he said. In total, the identified sites correspond to an area of 3.342 hectares.

The State will support the "upgrade" of the land and its development so that it can be immediately used by interested investors via an envelope of "450 million euros", the minister specified.

This envelope will notably make it possible to contribute to decontamination if necessary in order to make the site ready for use and to provide project owners with “engineering support to carry out the studies necessary to bring the site into compliance” , says an accompanying document.

“On average, it takes 17 months to install a factory on a site, we want to get as close as possible to the shortest possible period, i.e. 9 months,” says Mr. Lescure’s office in Bercy.

The 55 labeled sites come from “more than a hundred applications received”, added Mr. Béchu.