# Cannes blackout disrupts festival as French authorities suspect arson
A major power outage in southeast France on May 24 threatened to disrupt the closing day of the Cannes Film Festival, with French authorities saying arson may have played a role in the incident. According to the supplied AP report, power was restored hours before the Palme d’Or ceremony, but the blackout caused enough disruption to affect traffic, shops and festival operations across the area.
The evidence makes clear that this was not simply a brief inconvenience. About 160,000 households in the Alpes-Maritimes area lost electricity, and traffic lights in parts of Cannes and nearby Antibes stopped working after 10 a.m., creating jams and confusion in city centers. Shops along the Croisette remained closed, some food kiosks accepted only cash and train service in Cannes was also disrupted. Those details show how far the outage spread beyond the festival grounds.
At the center of the investigation is a fire at an electrical substation near Cannes that authorities believe may have been deliberate. The AP excerpt says a spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie said officials were examining the likelihood of arson, while the prefect for the area condemned “serious acts of damage to electrical infrastructures.” That language points to a serious criminal inquiry rather than a routine utility failure.
The festival itself appears to have avoided a total shutdown. Organizers confirmed that the Palais des Festivals switched to an independent power supply and said scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, would proceed as planned. That was a crucial reassurance because the outage happened on the day of the biggest award of the festival, with the Palme d’Or due to be handed out that night.
The source says screenings at Cineum, one of the satellite venues, were briefly suspended before the issue was stabilized. The restoration of power by around 3 p.m. local time allowed music to start playing again from beachfront speakers, and the end of the blackout was met with cheers. That detail captures the emotional release after hours of uncertainty.
The article should avoid overclaiming about the cause. The evidence says authorities believed arson may have played a role and were investigating both the substation fire and a later high-voltage line collapse. It does not say the arson theory was proven, and it does not identify suspects. A careful report should leave the cause at “suspected” and not go further.
Even with that caution, the story is strong. A power outage of this scale on the final day of Cannes could have derailed one of the world’s most important film events. Instead, festival organizers and local authorities managed to keep the closing ceremony on track while investigators looked into what caused the blackout. The verified facts show a city briefly thrown into confusion, a major festival nearly interrupted and an infrastructure attack now under investigation.
