Published: May 25, 2025
By: Minener Newsroom
The southeast of France experienced a second major blackout just 24 hours after the Saturday outage in Cannes, which disrupted the closing ceremony of the renowned Cannes Film Festival. In the early hours of Sunday, Nice became the target of another apparent sabotage, with a fire at a local electrical transformer cutting power to approximately 45,000 homes, according to electricity operator Enedis.
The fire broke out around 2:00 AM at a substation in the Moulins district, west of Nice. The city’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, publicly denounced the incident as a “malicious act.” The outage extended to nearby towns, including Saint-Laurent-du-Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer. Enedis confirmed that power was fully restored by 6:00 AM.
Local media outlet France Info reported that police found tire tracks and a broken door at the scene, fueling suspicions of a targeted sabotage. The blackout also disrupted Nice’s tram network and briefly impacted airport operations.
Nice prosecutor Damien Martinelli has opened a formal investigation into what is now being treated as an “organized arson.” Forensic teams are conducting technical assessments to determine the exact method and extent of the attack.
This event follows another sabotage just the day before in Cannes, where deliberate damage to two power facilities—one high-voltage substation in the Var region and a transmission tower in the Alpes-Maritimes—caused a blackout that affected 160,000 households and interrupted screenings at the film festival.