Monday afternoon, the mayor of Rennes said he wanted to impose six months of impact studies and citizens' debates before 5G was tested in the city.
This posture is highly criticized by digital entrepreneurs established in the Breton city.
The socialist mayor of Rennes, Nathalie Appéré, announced Monday that she did not want 5G on her territory for the moment, arousing the ire of some entrepreneurs worried about this position.
The Breton capital has 4,500 companies specializing in digital technology, employing more than 38,000 people.
"It's a global competition, so we can't afford, just at a local level, to say 'stop'," says company manager Jocelyn Denis at the microphone of Europe 1.
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Nathalie Appéré defends "the right of citizens to be enlightened - without being 'Amish' - to come out on top of a debate which is sometimes hysterical".
The mayor refers here to the words of Emmanuel Macron who had qualified some opponents of 5G as followers of the "Amish model".
It refuses any haste and wants to impose six months of impact study and citizen debates before testing 5G on its territory.
"Let's put all the arguments on the table," she calls.
A blow to the attractiveness of the city
Its slowdown nevertheless shakes the core business of Rennes, the second largest French pole in terms of density of players in connected objects.
Without 5G, some do not rule out going elsewhere, or even to other countries.
"The posture of certain elected environmentalists in Rennes, we found it shocking," said Jocelyn Denis, founder of Digitaleo.
"That worries me (...). By a political decision, we can take a lot of delay. It is as if Reims prohibited the sale of champagne."