Power outage during Cannes Film Festival, possible arson

Fox News shared this story from the Associated Press:

"A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, threatening to jeopardize the Cannes Film Festival’s closing celebrations, including the much-anticipated Palme d’Or ceremony.

Police said they have opened an investigation into possible arson.

Power was restored hours before the ceremony, around 3 p.m. local time, as music began blasting again from beachfront speakers. The end of the blackout was greeted with loud cheers from locals.

Earlier, about 160,000 households in the Alpes-Maritimes department lost electricity after a high-voltage line fell Saturday morning, electricity network operator RTE said on X. The outage came hours after a fire at an electrical substation near Cannes overnight had already weakened the grid.

"We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately," said a police spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie.

In a statement, Laurent Hottiaux, the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, condemned "serious acts of damage to electrical infrastructure[s]."

"All resources are mobilized to identify, track down, arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of these acts," said Hottiaux.

Cannes Film Festival organizers confirmed the outage affected the early activities of Saturday and said the Palais des Festivals — the Croisette's main venue — had switched to an independent power supply."

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