Cannes, France – a great blackout hit southeast France on Saturday morning, interrupting traffic and briefly arresting events at the Cannes Film Festival as the prestigious event prepared to deliver its superior award.
The power was restored around 3 pm, since the music began to fly again from the speakers in front of the beach front. The end of the blackout was received with strong cheers from the locals.
Previously, around 160,000 households in the department of Alpes-Marítimos lost electricity after a high voltage line fell on Saturday morning, said the operator of the electric network RTE in X. The interruption occurred hours after a fire in an electric substation near Cannes during the night had already weakened the grid.
Police have opened an investigation into possible fire.
“We are investigating the probability that a fire deliberately will begin,” said a French national gendarmerie spokesman.
The organizers of the Cannes Film Festival confirmed that the interruption affected the first activities on Saturday and said that the Palais Des festivals, the main place of Croisette, had changed to an independent energy supply.
“All programmed events and projections, including the closing ceremony, will proceed as planned and under normal conditions,” said the statement. “At this stage, the cause of the interruption has not yet been identified. Restoration efforts are underway.”
The traffic lights in parts of Cannes and the city of Antibes surrounding them stopped working after 10 am, which led to traffic jams and confusion in the city centers. Most of the stores along the croisette remained closed, and the local food kiosks only accepted effective. The train trains in Cannes was also interrupted.
The projections in the cineum, one of the satellite places of the festival, were briefly suspended, added the festival.
