On Saturday morning, a major power outage hit South -East France, interrupted traffic and briefly stopped the events at the Cannes Film Festival, as the prestigious event designed to hand over its top prize.
Power was restored around 3 pm local time, as the music began to explode again from the beach speakers. The end of the blackout was congratulated the locals with a loud cheers.
Earlier, about 160,000 houses in the Alps-MitIMS department lost power after a high-voltage line collapsed on Saturday morning, the power network operator RTE said on X that the outage had weakened the grid before the outage was overnight a few hours after the fire broke out in an electric substation near the ear.
The police have opened an investigation in a possible arson.
“We are deliberately looking at the possibility of a fire,” said a spokesperson from the French National Jendarry.
Lewis Jolie / AP
The Cannes Film Festival organizers confirmed the outage influencing the early activities of Saturday and stated that the Palais des ceremony – the main place of the Crocet – had turned into an independent power supply.
“All scheduled events and screenings including the closing ceremony will move forward in the plan and in general circumstances,” the statement said. “At this stage, the cause of the outage has not been identified yet. Restoration attempts are going on.”
Traffic lights stopped functioning local time after 10 o’clock in the Cannes and surrounding cities antibes, causing traffic jams and confusion in the city centers. Most of the shops remained closed with Cruset, and local food kiosks were only accepting cash. Train service in ear was also disrupted.
One of the satellite places of the festival, screening in the cinema, was summarized, the festival said.
The lineup was Unveiled for Cannes last month.