A serious energy outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, threatening to jeopardize the Cannes Film Festival’s closing celebrations, together with the much-anticipated Palme d’Or ceremony.
Police stated they’ve opened an investigation into potential arson.
Power was restored hours earlier than the ceremony, round 3 p.m. native time, as music started blasting once more from beachfront audio system. The finish of the blackout was greeted with loud cheers from locals.
Earlier, about 160,000 households within the Alpes-Maritimes division misplaced electrical energy after a high-voltage line fell Saturday morning, electrical energy community operator RTE stated on X. The outage got here hours after a fireplace at {an electrical} substation close to Cannes in a single day had already weakened the grid.
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“We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately,” stated a police spokesperson for the French nationwide gendarmerie.
In an announcement, Laurent Hottiaux, the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes division, condemned “serious acts of damage to electrical infrastructures”
“All resources are mobilized to identify, track down, arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of these acts,” stated Hottiaux.
Cannes Film Festival organizers confirmed the outage affected the early actions of Saturday and stated the Palais des Festivals — the Croisette’s fundamental venue — had switched to an unbiased energy provide.
“All scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, will proceed as planned and under normal conditions,” the assertion stated. “At this stage, the cause of the outage has not yet been identified. Restoration efforts are underway.”
Traffic lights in elements of Cannes and the encompassing metropolis of Antibes stopped working after 10 a.m., resulting in site visitors jams and confusion in metropolis facilities. Most retailers alongside the Croisette remained closed, and native meals kiosks had been solely accepting money. Train service in Cannes was additionally disrupted.
Screenings on the Cineum, one of many pageant’s satellite tv for pc venues, had been briefly suspended, the pageant added.
The Palme d’Or — the pageant’s most prestigious prize — was set to be awarded Saturday night time, with high contenders together with Joachim Trier’s household drama “Sentimental Value,” Jafar Panahi’s revenge thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political thriller “The Secret Agent,” and Óliver Laxe’s desert street journey “Sirât.”
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