Sabotage suspected after blackout disrupts Cannes Film Festival

French authorities are investigating suspected sabotage as a possible cause of a large-scale power outage that plunged parts of the French Riviera — including Cannes — into darkness on Saturday, just hours before the 78th Cannes Film Festival’s closing ceremony.

According to France 3, the gendarmerie in the Department of the Maritime Alps believes that one of the two incidents that triggered the blackout was a deliberate fire at a high-voltage substation in the commune of Tanneron, in the neighbouring Var department.

Officials have not yet confirmed the cause of the second incident, the collapse of a high-voltage pylon near Lake Saint-Cassien, but forensic investigators have been dispatched to both sites after reports of possible malicious activity.

The French grid operator RTE confirmed that around 160,000 homes were left without electricity following the outage, which occurred shortly after 10 a.m. local time. The blackout disrupted train services across the region and caused power cuts along the famed Croisette boulevard in Cannes.

The outage resulted from two separate events on the same transmission line: a 2:45 a.m. fire at the Tanneron substation that compromised the electrical network, followed by the mid-morning collapse of the pylon, which severely damaged the grid’s stability.

Despite the setback, Cannes Film Festival organisers activated emergency generators at the Palais des Festivals within minutes, allowing the Closing Ceremony to go ahead as planned at 6:40 p.m. in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. In a statement, the festival confirmed that all events and screenings at the main venue would continue under normal conditions thanks to the independent power supply.

However, the off-site Cineum complex was forced to suspend screenings until the broader power grid stabilises. Actor Josh O’Connor, among others, cancelled scheduled promotional appearances due to logistical complications caused by the outage.

By Tamilla Hasanova