As the 78th Cannes Film Festival was approaching its closing ceremony, a massive power outage hit the Alpes-Maritimes region, affecting at least 160,000 households. The organizers quickly switched to an independent power supply system to ensure that the ceremony would proceed as planned.

Reports indicate that on May 24, a severe power outage occurred in Cannes and several surrounding areas, confirmed by the French electricity transmission network operator (RTE), which stated that a high-voltage power tower collapsed around 10 AM local time. The source of the outage is believed to be a fire at a high-voltage substation in a neighboring region, which might have been caused by arson or other criminal activities.

During the outage, businesses in Cannes were limited to cash transactions only, leading to traffic congestion due to signal failures, and the train station was chaotic with large crowds. Tourists and locals struggled to access the internet. Nevertheless, the closing ceremony was held at the Palais des Festivals as scheduled, supported by emergency generators for essential services such as Wi-Fi and escalators.