A little over 1.6 billion euros. That is the amount the Vinci group sought from the French state for an airport that never materialized. On April 10, 2024, the Nantes Administrative Court ruled: this record compensation claim was rejected. Six years after the Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport project was abandoned, the bill could have represented more than double the initial 730 million euros planned to build this infrastructure intended to relieve the skies over western France.
Key takeaways
- A colossal sum claimed, but the court finds the State not at fault
- A subtle exit: compensation will ultimately be negotiated
- Vinci invested only 9 million for a project that would have yielded eye-watering returns
A Concrete Contract, A Political Abandonment
Back to 2010. The State signs a concession agreement with Aéroport du Grand Ouest (AGO), an 85% Vinci subsidiary, to design, finance, build, and operate for 55 years the future Notre-Dame-des-Landes airport, as well as the Nantes-Atlantique and Saint-Nazaire-Montoir facilities in the meantime. The initial construction budget announced at the time was around €556 million excluding taxes, but a mediation report commissioned in 2018 recalculated the real cost of moving to the new facility at €730 million, including transitional works at Nantes-Atlantique.
The project, in truth, had been in the works since the 1960s. Put on hold after the oil shocks, it resurfaced in 2000 and, by the 2010s, became the symbol of an unprecedented environmental struggle in France. On site, the ZAD (zone d’aménagement différé, renamed “zone à défendre” by its occupants) embodied tensions for nearly a decade, with failed expulsions and clashes with the police.
On January 17, 2018, a twist: Édouard Philippe, then Prime Minister, announced that the State would definitively abandon the project. The decision caused a political shockwave. Local elected officials denounced a capitulation to the activists, while others hailed the end of a project contested on ecological grounds. The government chose an alternative path: modernize the existing Nantes-Atlantique airport rather than building a new one.
Vinci Seeks 1.6 Billion, The Court Says No
The question then became how much would need to be paid. And Vinci did not stint. Before the Nantes Administrative Court, its AGO subsidiary demanded the State be condemned for the wrongful termination of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes concession, along with the concessions for Nantes-Atlantique and Saint-Nazaire-Montoir, with a figure approaching €1.6 billion.
The judges ruled decisively. They found no “fault of the State” in abandoning the project; the termination of the concession was justified by public-interest considerations. The State was well within its rights to change course, even after eight years of contract and millions already invested. The court therefore dismissed the concessionaire’s claim for €1.6 billion in damages for the State’s fault.
That sets the principle. But the story does not end there, and this is where the case becomes interesting. The court did open a door for Vinci: this termination for these reasons also gives it the right to compensation covering the expenses incurred by the concessionaire and its lost profits. A half-and-half ruling that neither grants a windfall nor closes the file entirely.
An Invoice Yet to Be Written, Perhaps Until 2027
How much will Vinci ultimately receive? No one knows for sure, not even the judges. The indemnity will be set later: the court will have to consider the gains conferred to Aéroport du Grand Ouest (AGO) or to its shareholder companies if they were ever designated as the new concessionaires of the Nantes-Atlantique airport. A subtle compensation mechanism: the more Vinci pockets by reclaiming Nantes-Atlantique, the less generous the indemnity for Notre-Dame-des-Landes will be.
A call for bids was launched in December 2023 to designate the future concessionnaire of the current Nantes airport, which will directly influence the equation. On Vinci’s side, there is no sign of giving up. The group indicated that the court “has rejected at this stage only accessory requests and in terms that are contestable,” but not the core of its claim based on the contractual clauses. The result: the dispute over compensation will continue before the administrative court, until a ruling on the merits, an event unlikely to occur before 2026 or 2027.
A detail worth noting, because it changes the interpretation of the entire affair: at the end of 2018, the Conseil d’État already examined the matter and found Vinci’s claims excessive — the group had invested only €9 million in the overall Grand Ouest airport project between 2011 and 2018. A calculation based on this structure would have yielded an internal rate of return of between 65% and 73% over seven years, whereas the financial model in the concession contract anticipated 13.42%. In other words, even a compensation markedly reduced would still be financially comfortable for Vinci for an airport that never laid a single stone.
Sources: landesinfo.fr | france3-regions.franceinfo.fr
