French authorities believe arson may have been involved in the power outage that struck the Cannes Film Festival, along with roughly 160,000 homes in the surrounding area, on Saturday.
"We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately," said a spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie, adding that no arrests had been made at this stage.
Despite several screenings being interrupted, organisers of the international film festival said the closing ceremony will go ahead as planned, as they had an alternative power supply, the BBC reported.
Prosecutors said a first power cut occurred when a substation in the village of Tanneron, which supplies Cannes, was attacked by arsonists in the early hours, with shops in the area struggling to operate.
"Another hour and I'll throw everything away," Laurent Aboukrat, who owns Cannes' Jamin restaurant, told AFP news agency, adding that his fridges had been off since the morning.
"Cannes is in a total slowdown, meltdown, there's no coffee anywhere, and I think the town has run out of croissants, so this is like crisis territory," Australian producer Darren Vukasinovic told Reuters.
Mia Schem attended the festival to raise awareness for hostages
A ribbon with "Bring Them Home" written on it was confiscated from former Gaza hostage Mia Schem by security guards at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, Schem told N12.
"I came to help in the struggle to bring the hostages back,” Schem told N12.
“Unfortunately, upon arriving at the red carpet, the festival management confiscated the ribbon I was supposed to wear. I refused to give up. I took the yellow hostage pin from one of the delegation members and wore it on my dress," she stated.