Two anarchist groups claim responsibility for Cannes and Nice power outages

By Euronews

Published connected 26/05/2025 - 13:29 GMT+2•Updated 13:51

Two rebel groups successful France person claimed work for a powerfulness outage that near much than 160,000 homes without powerfulness successful nan southbound of nan country.

The blackout affected nan metropolis of Nice and nan Cannes Film Festival arsenic good arsenic knocking retired powerfulness to captious services for illustration postulation lights and rate machines.

Local officials said they suspected nan outage was caused by an arson onslaught and 2 self-styled "bands of anarchists" said they were down nan attack.

UK media said nan groups had published an anonymous missive connected Sunday successful which they reportedly wrote: "The purpose of nan action was not only to disrupt nan festival, but besides to deprive each business establishments of electricity."

But nan groups didn’t explicate why they wanted to target nan show aliases business sites.

According to nan nationalist prosecutor's office, a occurrence collapsed retired astatine an electrical transformer successful nan Moulins territory successful nan westbound of Nice.

Mayor Christian Estrosi said nan occurrence had been deliberately started and that he "strongly condemned these malicious acts that impact our country" successful a station connected X.

He added that nan metropolis would beryllium strengthening its information astir electrical sites successful nan coming days and that a general title would beryllium revenge pursuing nan incident.

Power was restored astir 6 americium connected Sunday. The neighbouring towns of Saint-Laurent-du-Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer were besides affected by nan blackout.

The incident follows a blackout that struck Cannes and nan surrounding region nan erstwhile day, affecting astir 160,000 homes.

A high-voltage substation was group connected occurrence successful nan Var department, and a powerfulness pylon was sawn down successful nan Alpes-Maritimes.

Despite nan disruption, nan Cannes Film Festival proceeded arsenic planned connected its last day, acknowledgment to its independent powerfulness supply. Electricity was restored to nan region by precocious afternoon.