French authorities said on Saturday that a power outage in the Cannes area in southeastern 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, according to RTE, France’s electrical grid operator, which said service was gradually being restored. The outage interrupted some screenings at the film festival, which quickly switched over to its own generators. Organizers said the closing ceremony Saturday evening — when the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize, is awarded — would proceed normally.
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 mobilized to identify, track down, arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of these acts,” Mr. 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 10 a.m., 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 X, where he posted a photo of a leaning electrical pylon.
French authorities said local prosecutors had opened investigations into the sabotage, but they did not say whether they believed it had deliberately targeted the Cannes Film Festival — one of the world’s most famous, and a symbol of French glamour and cultural star power.
Still, the outages recalled another time sabotage briefly blighted a moment of national pride: Last year, arson attacks on rail lines caused momentary travel chaos in France on the opening day of the Paris Summer Olympics.
French authorities did not determine who was responsible for that arson, but at the time they cast suspicion on “ultraleft” anticapitalist groups that want to disrupt the workings of the state.
Disruptions to the film festival were limited. Organizers said in a statement that it had quickly switched over to an independent power supply, “allowing all scheduled events and screenings, including the closing ceremony, to proceed as planned and under normal conditions.” It said screenings at one theater had been “temporarily suspended.”
One festivalgoer was an hour and a half into a screening of “Sound of Falling” on Saturday morning at the Agnes Varda theater when the screen blacked out and the emergency lights came on. A backup generator kicked in 20 minutes later and the screening resumed.
But the power outage also scrambled daily life in Cannes, which becomes a tourist magnet when movie stars and directors are in town.
Dark traffic lights forced police officers to direct the flow of cars through busy intersections, while firefighters responded to scores of elevator breakdowns in the region.
On the clock tower atop the city’s old quarter, the hands froze at just past 10 o’clock. Some boutiques were closed on the Croisette, a promenade along the beach known for its high-end hotels and luxury shops.
When the power came back on at one restaurant just before 3 p.m., patrons clapped and cheered.
Aurelien Breeden is a reporter for The Times in Paris, covering news from France.
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
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