In Rennes, administrative litigation is rising and cases are piling up. The court recorded 8,726 cases in 2025, up from 7,643 in 2024. In its public report, the Council of State warns of a factor likely to add work for the courts: AI tools that make it easier to multiply appeals and often make them unnecessarily long.

Two findings must be distinguished. The reports measure the rise in cases; they do not quantify the share attributable to AI. The warning concerns the processing burden, with a difficulty already documented in court decisions: checking invented references and untangling repeated arguments or those unrelated to the dispute.

In Rennes, 9,300 pending cases in June

On 9 June 2026, before the mayors of Ille-et-Vilaine, the court president, Alain Poujade, presented a workload update: 9,000 appeals received over twelve months, 2,500 more than two years earlier, and 9,300 pending cases. Of these, 15% had been filed more than two years earlier. These figures describe the situation in June, not a new October count.

The average delay announced at that event was 17 months excluding interim proceedings and 10 months including them. The 2025 annual report shows a delay of 9 months and 18 days, an improvement of six days compared to 2024. The indicators cover different periods and scopes: the annual average is not enough to describe the age of cases still pending.

Rennes's 14% increase in 2025 remains below the national rise. According to the key figures for administrative justice, administrative courts recorded 334,706 cases, 20% more than in 2024. The causes of the volume are multiple. In his June speech, Alain Poujade noted that immigration litigation accounted for about a third of new cases in Rennes.

Concern over volume and quality of written submissions

In the editorial of the 2025 public report, Didier-Roland Tabuteau, vice-president of the Council of State, highlights both the help AI could provide and the risk of increased workload. Producing a plausible legal text becomes easier. That does not guarantee the relevance of arguments or the accuracy of cited decisions.

Digital filing is already established: 57,595 appeals were registered via Télérecours citoyens in 2025, across administrative courts, administrative courts of appeal and the Council of State. This figure says nothing about the drafting method. It does show that a widely accessible filing channel exists for transmitting these submissions.

For a court registry, a judge or an administration defending a decision, extra length adds value only if it helps understand the request. References must be traceable and facts linked to the case file. When these elements are missing, a longer text can add verification work without making the dispute clearer.

In Grenoble, orders already describe the problem

Two decisions from December 2025, reproduced by law firm Landot, give specific examples. In the order of 3 December, no. 2509827, the Grenoble administrative court notes repeated formulations and "fanciful case-law references" in an appeal concerning illegal dumping. It attributes these defects most likely to a generative AI tool.

The rejection is based on procedural and legal grounds, including the absence of the contested decision despite a request for regularisation, and then the insufficiency of the arguments presented. The use of AI is not, in itself, the reason for rejection.

In the order of 9 December, no. 2512468, the applicant left their chatbot exchange in the filed submissions. The administrative court declares itself manifestly lacking jurisdiction. These cases document concrete errors; they do not allow measuring their frequency in Rennes or nationally.

Procedural filtering does not solve the issue of arguments

Article R. 222-1 of the Code of Administrative Justice allows, in precisely defined cases, rejecting an appeal by order without a hearing. The Grenoble decisions illustrate this tool. It speeds up processing of some cases, but still requires identifying the request, checking its admissibility and examining the applicable grounds.

The administrative justice system is also preparing its own uses of AI. The public report mentions a charter adopted in December 2025 and work on legal research and handling of repetitive litigation. These projects do not measure the gains actually achieved by courts today.

For local authorities, hospitals and state services responding to appeals, the challenge remains processing legally relevant submissions. For litigants, it concerns the time within which their situation will be examined. In Rennes, the June update already counted 15% of cases pending for more than two years.

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