Power outage disrupts final day of Cannes Film Festival, police investigate possible arson

CANNES, France — A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, disrupting traffic and briefly halting events at the Cannes Film Festival as the prestigious event prepared to hand out its top prize.

CANNES, France — A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, disrupting traffic and briefly halting events at the Cannes Film Festival as the prestigious event prepared to hand out its top prize.

Power was restored around 3 p.m., 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.

Police have opened an investigation into possible arson.

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