The project had raised opposition from students and former students of Polytechnique who accused their school of selling out to private interests. The world number one in luxury LVMH will ultimately not set up its research center near the most prestigious of French engineering schools. “LVMH has chosen to move towards land located outside the Saclay plateau”, soberly announced in a press release the Ecole Polytechnique which “takes note of the decision”. The research partnership of two million euros per year for five years is not, however, called into question.
LVMH confirmed to AFP that it is moving “towards land outside the Saclay plateau for the installation of [son] research centre”, without specifying its location. The project of the world number one in luxury, called LVMH Gaia, should eventually bring together 300 researchers on an area of 22,500 m², according to the group which intends to invest more than 100 million euros in the future building.
Total had already failed
Announced in July, the LVMH project on the Saclay plateau had aroused a roar of students and former students of the X grouped within the collective “Polytechnique is not for sale!” “. The latter declared on Monday “to be delighted” with the decision of LVMH in a press release co-signed with the Sphinx, association of students and former students of Polytechnique. “The question of the future of the land remains open and the associations remain mobilized so that the establishment reviews its land strategy,” adds the authors of the press release.
“One year after Total, the renunciation of LVMH confirms the failure of the strategy consisting in selling off the campus land to large groups. It is urgent to think collectively about another future for these lands, ”insists Thomas Vezin, secretary general of the Sphinx, quoted in the press release. Already last year, TotalEnergies had given up setting up its new research and development center on another site located near Polytechnique, after an initial mobilization of teachers and students opposed to the project.
Regarding LVMH, despite opposition to the project by Bernard Arnault, himself a polytechnician, the school’s board of directors had validated the sale of the land in November by 19 votes for, 4 against and one abstention. The School and the Polytechnic Institute of Paris indicate that they want to continue “developing the innovation park intended to accommodate research and innovation activities”, where Total and LVMH were to settle, by “starting with the instruction of a shared research building project”.