Power outage across Cannes during film festival being treated as sabotage
Paris/Cannes: French authorities say a power outage in the Cannes area in south-eastern France that briefly disrupted the film festival there was caused by acts of sabotage, including arson at a substation and damage to a transmission tower.
About 160,000 homes in Cannes and the surrounding area were left without power for hours on Saturday, Cannes time, according to RTE, France's electrical grid operator, which said service had been fully restored by late afternoon.
The outage interrupted some screenings at the film festival, which quickly switched over to its own generators.
Laurent Hottiaux, the state representative for the Alpes-Maritimes area, which includes Cannes, said the outage was caused by 'major damage to network installations' near the city, including the arson attack and damage to the tower.
'All resources are being mobilised to identify, track down, arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of these acts,' Hottiaux said in a statement.
RTE said the outage started with an overnight fire at a substation west of Cannes. Firefighters brought the blaze under control, and electricity was restored by diverting power from other lines.
But around 10am, the company also detected an unstable pylon on a separate line east of the city that was threatening to topple, forcing crews to cut power in the area once more.
'We need transparency and fast answers,' Éric Ciotti, a right-wing lawmaker representing the Alpes-Maritimes, said on social media.
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