Blackout Disrupts Southern France Ahead of Cannes Festival’s Closing Ceremony
Rabat – A major electricity outage struck France’s Alpes-Maritimes region on Saturday morning, cutting power to 160,000 homes and affecting the city of Cannes as it hosts the final day of its internationally renowned film festival.
Local authorities confirmed that the outage, which began shortly after 10:00 a.m. (08:00 GMT), was caused by a fire at a power substation in the nearby village of Tanneron. Police sources, speaking anonymously to AFP, said the blaze was likely the result of arson.
Despite the disruption, the Cannes Film Festival announced that the official closing ceremony would proceed as scheduled at 6:40 p.m. local time (1640 GMT), thanks to backup power systems.
“The Palais des Festivals has switched to an independent power supply, allowing all scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, to proceed as planned and under normal conditions,” festival organizers said in a statement.
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However, screenings at the Cineum cinema were temporarily suspended and will resume once the main grid supply is restored. Morning sessions at other festival venues were also briefly interrupted during the switch to generator power.
The outage has caused widespread issues across the glamorous Mediterranean city, knocking out traffic lights and forcing the closure of several shops along the city’s main commercial avenues.
Nevertheless, the festival continues undeterred. Press events for films such as the Dardenne brothers’ Young Mothers and Martin Bourboulon’s 13 Days, 13 Nights are still going ahead.
The final ceremony, where French actress Juliette Binoche and her jury are expected to announce this year’s Palme d’Or winner and other top prizes, is set to close out nearly two weeks of red-carpet premieres, international film showcases, and political discourse.
This comes weeks after France was impacted by a large-scale power outage on April 28 that struck the Iberian Peninsula. System operators reported that three significant incidents together caused a loss exceeding 2.2 gigawatts of electricity, which led to the automatic separation of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe’s power grid.
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