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At the end of a narrow suburban street north of Paris, a giant structure shrouded in a skin of mesh and steel looks like a football stadium, but is in fact a vast data center.

Paris Digital Park, which towers over four-story apartment blocks and is owned by US firm Digital Realty, is one of more than 70 centers that ring the French capital—more than a third of the country's total.

The government is pushing hard to expand an industry seen as the backbone of the digital economy, playing catch-up with established hubs like London and Frankfurt, and is so far avoiding the backlash that has slowed development elsewhere.

"The Paris region is the fourth largest hub in the world for content exchanges," Fabrice Coquio, President of Digital Realty France, told AFP on a recent tour of his firm's campus.

The capital region's data center industry is already worth 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), according to specialist consultancy Structure Research.

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