Latest news with #anarchistgroups
Daily Mail
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
French anarchists claim responsibility for blackouts which have left 160,000 people in darkness in south of nation overnight
Two French anarchist groups have claimed responsibility for a massive power cut that left more than 160,000 in Nice and the Cannes Film Festival in darkness over the weekend. For five hours on Saturday, power was cut across the south of France, leaving vital services like ATMs and traffic lights in a completely unusable state. A day after the outage, which local officials said was caused by a suspected arson attack on a nearby substation and the vandalism of an electricity pylon, two self-proclaimed 'bands of anarchists' said they were behind the attacks In an anonymous letter published on Sunday, the groups reportedly wrote: 'The aim of the action was not only to disrupt the festival, but also to deprive all industrial establishments of electricity. 'We're not on a film set, but 'cut!' seemed to sum up our desire to turn off this deadly system', they added. Damien Savarzeix, the public prosecutor in Grasse, said over the weekend that three of the four pillars of a pylon carrying a power line in Villeneuve-Loubet 'were sawn off' in a 'malicious act'. Electrical engineers were forced to cut power for the region for several hours, leaving 160,000 without electricity. A day later, a fire hit a nearby transformer in Nice, knocking out power for 45,000 homes. Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, wrote on X: 'I vigorously condemn these criminal acts hitting our country. In the coming days, we are reinforcing the [security camera] network around the city's strategic electric sites.' Laurent Hottiaux, prefect of Alpes-Maritimes, added that he condemned 'these serious acts of damage' in 'the strongest terms,' the statement said. Europe's power infrastructure appears to have had its flaws exposed in recent weeks. Over the weekend, it was suggested that Spanish authorities were experimenting with how far they could push their reliance on renewable energy before the Iberian Peninsula was hit with a massive power outage last month. As people wait for more answers on what caused the power cut that disrupted tens of millions of lives across Spain and Portugal, several have questioned Spain's heavy reliance on renewable energy sources as it plans to phase out nuclear reactors. Spain's socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has rejected such criticism, asking for patience while the government investigates the causes of the historic blackout. Spain's electric grid operator Red Eléctrica de España pinned it on a significant and unprecedented drop in power generation. Now, it has been suggested that the Spanish government was carrying out an experiment before the country's grid system crashed, The Telegraph reports. Under said test, authorities had been trialling how far they could push their reliance on renewables as they prepared for Spain's phase-out of nuclear reactors from 2027. The Spanish Association of Electrical Energy Companies (Aelec), which has criticised the inquiry into the blackout's cause, has now said it was not the country's generators that failed to deliver power to the grid, but rather it was the grid that failed to manage it and then shut down automatically. The head of Spain's photovoltaic association, Jose Donoso, had made a similar suggestion earlier this month, telling newsoutlet 20Minutos: 'It's a matter of logic; the fact that the entire system goes down because of a photovoltaic plant makes no sense. 'We suffered the consequences of a grid disruption, but we didn't cause it.' Aelec said the authorities had essentially confined the trial to a 20-second span on April 28, and ignored a series of oscillations in tension that began days earlier and transcended 'emergency' levels across the peninsula for two hours leading up to the blackout. The association added that the authorities did not substantiate their claim that it all began with a sudden drop of 2.2 gigawatts in power supplied to the grid. It comes after the sweeping power outage last month raised questions about the electricity grid in a region not normally known for blackouts. Spain's top criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, said it was investigating whether the blackout was 'an act of computer sabotage on critical infrastructure' that could be classified as 'a terrorism offence'. The government set up a commission to investigate what triggered the incident, and refused to rule out any hypothesis.
News.com.au
26-05-2025
- News.com.au
French authorities blame sabotage for second power blackout
French authorities on Sunday blamed sabotage and ordered heightened security after a fire at an electricity sub-station in Nice caused the second major power blackout in two days along the Riviera. The latest fire cut power to about 45,000 homes in western Nice for several hours, authorities said. Nice airport was briefly without electricity, the city's deputy mayor Gael Nofri told AFP. A similar arson attack on a power substation on Saturday partially disrupted the final day of the Cannes film festival, forcing organisers to use backup generators to keep the event going. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation and were looking into a claim Sunday by two anarchist groups of "responsibility for the attack on electrical installations on the Cote d'Azur". The claim was posted on an alternative website. "I vigorously condemn these criminal acts hitting our country," Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said on X. "We are making images from our monitoring centre available to investigators and will strengthen the city's network at strategic electrical sites in coming days," he added. "Until the perpetrators of these acts have been arrested, we will not ease up our attention anywhere," Estrosi told reporters. Nice's chief prosecutor Damien Martinelli said studies had been carried out "to clarify the damage and the methods used to carry out the act" and that police were investigating "arson by an organised group". Police said that tyre marks had been found near the Nice transformer and someone had broken into a room in the building. An arson attack at a power substation and a bid to cut the legs of an electricity pylon near Cannes cut power to 160,000 homes in the region for five hours on Saturday. The cut knocked out traffic lights and bank machines in Cannes, as well as threatening the finale to the film festival. The festival "switched to an alternative electricity power supply" to keep the closing ceremony and award events going. Firefighters battled for five hours to put out the flames at the sub-station, officials said. In the attack on the high-voltage pylon, three of its four legs had been damaged, said prosecutors. mla-vxm-alc/djt/jj
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
French authorities blame sabotage for second power blackout
French authorities on Sunday blamed sabotage and ordered heightened security after a fire at an electricity sub-station in Nice caused the second major power blackout in two days along the Riviera. The latest fire cut power to about 45,000 homes in western Nice for several hours, authorities said. Nice airport was briefly without electricity, the city's deputy mayor Gael Nofri told AFP. A similar arson attack on a power substation on Saturday partially disrupted the final day of the Cannes film festival, forcing organisers to use backup generators to keep the event going. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation and were looking into a claim Sunday by two anarchist groups of "responsibility for the attack on electrical installations on the Cote d'Azur". The claim was posted on an alternative website. "I vigorously condemn these criminal acts hitting our country," Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said on X. "We are making images from our monitoring centre available to investigators and will strengthen the city's network at strategic electrical sites in coming days," he added. "Until the perpetrators of these acts have been arrested, we will not ease up our attention anywhere," Estrosi told reporters. Nice's chief prosecutor Damien Martinelli said studies had been carried out "to clarify the damage and the methods used to carry out the act" and that police were investigating "arson by an organised group". Police said that tyre marks had been found near the Nice transformer and someone had broken into a room in the building. An arson attack at a power substation and a bid to cut the legs of an electricity pylon near Cannes cut power to 160,000 homes in the region for five hours on Saturday. The cut knocked out traffic lights and bank machines in Cannes, as well as threatening the finale to the film festival. The festival "switched to an alternative electricity power supply" to keep the closing ceremony and award events going. Firefighters battled for five hours to put out the flames at the sub-station, officials said. In the attack on the high-voltage pylon, three of its four legs had been damaged, said prosecutors. mla-vxm-alc/djt/jj
Arab News
25-05-2025
- Arab News
French authorities blame sabotage for second power blackout
NICE, France: French authorities on Sunday blamed sabotage and ordered heightened security after a fire at an electricity sub-station in Nice caused the second major power blackout in two days along the Riviera. The latest fire cut power to about 45,000 homes in western Nice for several hours, authorities said. Nice airport was briefly without electricity, the city's deputy mayor Gael Nofri told AFP. A similar arson attack on a power substation on Saturday partially disrupted the final day of the Cannes film festival, forcing organizers to use backup generators to keep the event going. Prosecutors said they had opened an investigation and were looking into a claim Sunday by two anarchist groups of 'responsibility for the attack on electrical installations on the Cote d'Azur.' The claim was posted on an alternative website. 'I vigorously condemn these criminal acts hitting our country,' Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said on X. 'We are making images from our monitoring center available to investigators and will strengthen the city's network at strategic electrical sites in coming days,' he added. 'Until the perpetrators of these acts have been arrested, we will not ease up our attention anywhere,' Estrosi told reporters. Nice's chief prosecutor Damien Martinelli said studies had been carried out 'to clarify the damage and the methods used to carry out the act' and that police were investigating 'arson by an organized group.' Police said that tire marks had been found near the Nice transformer and someone had broken into a room in the building. An arson attack at a power substation and a bid to cut the legs of an electricity pylon near Cannes cut power to 160,000 homes in the region for five hours on Saturday. The cut knocked out traffic lights and bank machines in Cannes, as well as threatening the finale to the film festival. The festival 'switched to an alternative electricity power supply' to keep the closing ceremony and award events going. Firefighters battled for five hours to put out the flames at the sub-station, officials said. In the attack on the high-voltage pylon, three of its four legs had been damaged, said prosecutors.
Telegraph
25-05-2025
- Telegraph
We're behind the Cannes power cut, boast French anarchists
Two anarchist groups claimed responsibility for a massive power cut that hit the French Riviera over the weekend, saying the sabotage was aimed at 'disrupting' the Cannes Film Festival. Power was lost for five hours on the final day of the festival on Saturday, knocking out traffic lights and ATMs and forcing organisers to use back-up generators. Local officials said a suspected arson attack on a substation and vandalism of an electricity pylon were the causes. The headquarters of the festival switched to a backup power supply. Full power was subsequently restored, allowing Saturday night's closing ceremony to go ahead as planned. In an anonymous letter published online on Sunday, the two groups said they were behind the massive outage. 'The aim of the action was not only to disrupt the festival, but also to deprive all industrial establishments of electricity,' the anarchist groups reportedly wrote in their letter. 'We're not on a film set, but 'cut!' seemed to sum up our desire to turn off this deadly system,' they added, according to a police source. 'Malicious act' On Saturday, Damien Savarzeix, the public prosecutor in Grasse, said that three of the four pillars of a pylon on the high-voltage line in Villeneuve-Loubet, which supplies power to part of the area, including Cannes, 'were sawn off' in a 'malicious act'. Electricity workers then switched off the line to allow the work to be carried out, indirectly causing a power cut that left 160,000 homes without electricity throughout the day. Following the Cannes incident, a blaze then hit an electricity transformer in the western part of the city of Nice overnight on Saturday, knocking out power to 45,000 homes in the city and the surrounding region, the offices of the mayor and local prosecutors said. 'I vigorously condemn these criminal acts hitting our country,' Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said on X. 'In the coming days, we are reinforcing the (security camera) network around the city's strategic electric sites.' Power was restored around dawn, officials and the Enedis grid company said. At Cannes, the Palme d'Or went to A Simple Accident directed by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker who was barred from leaving the state in 2018 when he earned a best screenplay prize. Mr Panahi has been imprisoned several times and went on a hunger strike in 2023 amid a state ban on his filmmaking. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said his Cannes award was a further 'gesture of resistance against the Iranian regime's oppression '. On Sunday, Iran summoned the French charge d'affaires in Tehran over what it called the minister's 'insulting remarks and unfounded allegations'.
