250,000 homes in south of France suffer power cut

More than 250,000 homes in the Alpes-Maritimes and Var plunged into darkness yesterday evening due to a giant power cut. Several towns were affected by the shutdown.

The power outage plunged part of Nice, and several surrounding cities such as Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cannes and La Brigue into darkness, around 20:15.

The outage impact

Around 260,000 households in the Var were affected, said the vice-president of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, François de Canson, on Facebook.

Several people were stuck in elevators during this blackout.

While police in the Alpes-Maritimes department called on residents not to saturate the number 17 "to leave the emergency lines free", and shared the number set up by EDF for the victims.

In Cannes, the women's volleyball League A match against Vandœuvre-Nancy had to be interrupted after the Palais des Victoires was plunged into darkness.

Power restored

"Our teams are repairing the outage which is linked to a technical incident on our network which then led to an overload," grid operator Réseau et Transport d'Electricité (RTE) said to FranceInfo.

RTE later announced that power was back to normal everywhere after 22:00.

Read also

Electricity bills to rise in France but officials clash over amount

See how France’s electricity prices compare with others in Europe

Family of three receives electricity bill for €232,672 for French home