Paris Polytechnic Institute approves sale of land to LVMH

Paris - The world's leading luxury goods company LVMH will be able to set up its new research centre on the Saclay site in Paris near the engineering school of the Paris Polytechnic Institute, despite protests from several students and former students.

The board of directors of the Polytechnic Institute, l'Institut Polytechnique (IP Paris) in French, has approved the sale of a plot of land next to its school to LVMH by 19 votes in favour, 4 against and one abstention. The project, called LVMH Gaia, will bring together 300 researchers over a surface area of 22,500 cubic metres, according to LVMH, which intends to invest more than 100 million euros in the future building.

The research centre dedicated to "sustainable and digital luxury" of Bernard Arnault's LVMH group, with the CEO himself being a graduate of IP Paris, plans to invest 2 million euros per year for five years in research partnerships with IP Paris, nicknamed X.

The land, located within the innovation park of the Paris Polytechnic Institute (which groups together five schools including the École Polytechnique) belongs to the Paris-Saclay public development establishment (EPAPS). As the plot chosen by LVMH is adjacent to the engineering school, the latter had a veto until 2025.

Since its official announcement this summer, several students and alumni of the Polytechnic Institute have expressed their opposition to the project, in particular through a collective called "Polytechnique is not for sale! This collective demands that the LVMH building be built outside the campus and that the land in the north-eastern part of the campus, including the plot of land coveted by LVMH, be reallocated for use by IP Paris.

An article published in the French newspaper Le Monde at the beginning of September signed by 73 former students, referred to a "harmful project ", which " involves technical problems unrelated to the school's research themes: replacement of plastics by more ecological alternatives in perfume packaging, development of more efficient recommendation algorithms to increase the quantity of products sold, etc ".

"This is not the end of the mobilisation"

The signatories accused Bernard Arnault's group of wanting to "cement a false sense of credibility on the environmental issue and obtain privileged access to the students on campus, while the benefits for the school would be extremely meagre, both financially and scientifically".

Matthieu Lequesne, spokesman for "Polytechnique is not for sale!", told AFP that four votes against and one abstention in a board of directors "which always votes unanimously" is a strong sign of opposition. "The last time there was this much opposition was in 2016," he said.

"This is not the end of the mobilisation", he assures, "the users of the campus are in majority against this project". However, nothing guarantees that LVMH will in fact acquire the land, according to the spokesman for the collective. The director of strategy for the luxury group, Jean-Baptiste Voisin, left a doubt in Les Echos on Monday.

If the board of directors of Polytechnique does not oppose the purchase of the land by LVMH, "we will have the opportunity to buy it, but it is not said that we will do so. This is just one of many options available in the Paris region, and we are studying all of them," said Mr Voisin on behalf of LVMH, who is also secretary general of the Polytechnique alumni association.

The project is "completely relocatable", according to him, "you take it by helicopter, you drop it where you want". In January, the TotalEnergies group had given up on setting up its new Research and Development centre on land also located near the École Polytechnique after teachers and students opposed to the project mobilised (AFP).

This article was previously published on FashionUnited.FR. Translation and editing into English: Veerle Versteeg.