French authorities investigate second power blackout in two days
Guardian5 days
These coordinated attacks on critical infrastructure represent a serious threat to public safety and national security that demands immediate action. The deliberate targeting of electrical facilities during major cultural events like the Cannes Film Festival shows a calculated effort to cause maximum disruption and endanger lives by knocking out traffic lights, emergency services, and vital infrastructure. French authorities are right to treat these as terrorist acts that require relentless pursuit of the perpetrators and enhanced security measures around all strategic sites.
While anarchist groups may have taken credit for these attacks, Russia has also been accused of similar acts of sabotage and arson across the continent. The fact that such vital infrastructure could be damaged at such a high-profile event is a bad sign, and Europe must strengthen all of its frontiers against potential threats that may be bigger in scale than a few radical activists. Europe needs to take the prospect of state-sponsored attacks from Russia meant to destabilize the free world more seriously.
There's a 35% chance that there will be a large-scale power outage in the Continental Europe synchronous grid affecting multiple countries before 2028, according to the Metaculus prediction community.