Abstract The development of so-called sustainable public purchasing in France is part of a long-standing regulatory evolution. The EGALIM, Climate and Resilience, and Anti-Waste and Circular Economy laws have recently transformed what was a possibility for public purchasers into an obligation. They are even sometimes presented as an opportunity to promote local public purchasing. Whether it is the implicit consequence of a more environmentally friendly purchase or the explicit objective of the public purchaser who uses green purchasing as an instrument, local purchasing must be analyzed. After detailing the legislative framework in force in France, this article first presents the theoretical arguments for analyzing the link between local purchasing and sustainable purchasing. In particular, our analysis shows how optimal purchasing procedures, whether they explicitly aim at local purchasing or integrate an ecological dimension, can be confused, making it difficult to discern the intended objective and in turn requiring a more empirical analysis of the practices observed. We then present all the data (both very disparate and incomplete) currently available in France (BOAMP, TED, DECP) on which such analyses can be conducted. We then present some empirical results from these data, pointing out the interdependencies that may exist between green purchasing and local purchasing and underlining the central issue that exists around the open data formats of public procurement, their scope and their exhaustiveness. In particular, our results seem to indicate that we cannot exclude the hypothesis that local purchasing has protectionist foundations and is not necessarily the consequence of an announced environmental concern.