top cx logo
cx logo
Explorearrow down
search icon

Tens of thousands of French homes lose internet as vandals cut cables

The outages happened overnight when cables were ‘severed’ in three different locations. Service should now be returning to normal

Internet users across France were affected by outages in the early hours of this morning Pic: kotovfot / Shutterstock

[Article updated at 17:30 on April 27]

The internet connections of tens of thousands of residents in several French towns have been slowed down or cut off completely in a series of suspected attacks by vandals on the fibre optic network. 

The economy ministry confirmed the issues to AFP news service this morning (April 27), saying problems with “severed cables” had been identified and were suspected of being related to vandalism. 

As a result, internet users may notice that pages are slower to load – or do not load at all – today, although the disruption had largely been resolved by midday.

Cables were cut on the Paris-Lyon, Paris-Strasbourg and Paris-Lille networks, and Le Parisien reports that the vandalism took place at Fresnes-en-Woëvre (Meuse), Souppes-sur-Loing (Seine-et-Marne) and Le Coudray-Montceaux (Essonne).

 Internet provider Free informed its customers – around 100,000 of whom were affected –  that “multiple acts of malice” on the fibre optic infrastructure had occurred during the night but were now “contained”.

IT solutions company Netalis, for its part, began a live blog on its website to keep users up to date with the situation. It described the outages as being a “major” incident, and unusual in that each cut had occurred just “tens of minutes apart”.

Down Detector, a website which gathers together information from internet users on connection issues, reflected a significant rise in the number of people reporting problems with Orange, SFR and Free. An increase was also noted with regards to Bouygues, but it was not as pronounced. 

The impact to SFR customers was reportedly minimal, although the company confirmed that cables were cut. However, and Orange and Bouygues have not reported problems.

The website also showed that the reports were concentrated around the Paris-Lyon, Paris-Strasbourg and Paris-Lille networks, as well as in Marseille and Grenoble.

"It's a bit like if a motorway was blocked off and traffic had to be redirected onto routes nationales," Sami Slim of communications technology provider Telehouse told AFP. 

Too strange a coincidence to be an accident 

While it is not uncommon to see issues affect the internet on a particular network, it is much more unusual for several outages to occur at once.

Network engineer Pierre-Yves Maunier, told Numerama: “It is very rare to have so many connections cut at the same time.”

Outages were detected at 03:20, 03:40 and 05:20 this morning in locations separated by a considerable distance, affecting national and international networks. 

It had been suggested that the cuts could have been caused accidentally by a mechanical digger at a building site, but this has now been ruled out due to the time and locations of the outages. 

The incident has been passed on to the police for investigation. 

Related articles 

Millions in France targeted in ‘well executed’ carte Vitale text scam

€300 to €600 grant given to connect more homes in France to fibre

Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service loses authorisation in France

Resident or second-home owner in France?
Benefit from our daily digest of headlines and how-to's to help you make the most of life in France
By joining the newsletter, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy
See more popular articles
The Connexion Help Guides
featured helpguide
Income Tax in France 2023 (for 2022 income)*
Featured Help Guide
- Primarily aimed at Britons, covers pensions, rent, ISAs, shares, savings and interest - and contains general information relevant to readers of other nationalities - Overview of online declarations + step-by-step guide to the French printed forms - Includes updates given automatically after this year's site opened
Get news, views and information from France