Massive power outage in the Cannes region on the last day of the Festival, affecting 160,000 homes

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on May 24, 2025 at 12:49 p.m. , updated on May 24, 2025 at 1:20 p.m.

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Dark rooms are no longer the preserve of the Cannes Film Festival: a "major power outage" has been affecting the western Alpes-Maritimes region since 10 a.m. this Saturday, May 24, the last day of the festival, whose closing ceremony should not be affected, according to the organizers. The outage affects "Cannes and the surrounding towns and deprives 160,000 homes of power," RTE on X reported.

The closing ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, scheduled for this Saturday evening, will be able to take place "under normal conditions," the event's press office announced. "The Palais des Festivals has switched to an independent power supply system, which allows all events and screenings scheduled for today, including the closing ceremony, to continue under normal conditions," according to the festival's press release.

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Its press service also told AFP that the venue was "self-sufficient in electricity" thanks to a generator and that there would therefore be "no problem for this evening's live broadcast" , that is, the retransmission, from 6:40 p.m., of the closing ceremony, which will see the Palme d'Or awarded to one of the 22 films in the competition.

A fire at a high-voltage substation in Tanneron (Var) caused the first power outage overnight. The fire, which was initially suspected of being arson, broke out around 2 a.m. and was contained by 7 a.m. after the intervention of seven fire engines and twenty firefighters, the Var prefecture told AFP.

According to RTE, after this initial nighttime incident weakened the network, the fall at 10 a.m. of a pylon on a high-voltage line supplying Cannes caused a power outage in the city and surrounding communities. The operator was unable to indicate how soon power would be restored.

Shortly after 10 a.m., several screenings at the Palais des Festivals were interrupted for about fifteen minutes before resuming. In some parts of the city, traffic lights were out of order, and some shops were forced to close due to a power outage. The telephone and internet networks were also disrupted, operating intermittently.