The causes are double. Several power cuts affected the Parisian electricity network on Saturday, notably affecting the Galeries Lafayette and buildings of the National Assembly.
Around 4 pm, “the current was cut in part of the Lafayette galleries near Boulevard Haussmann” according to a photo of a witness consulted by AFP, as well as rue Poussin in the 16th arrondissement at 9:30 p.m. “The incidents concern only a few very localized and limited areas of the capital,” said Enedis, the manager of the electricity distribution network, adding that “all the customers concerned were able to recover a food via a rescue driving scheme”.
Parisian electrical incidents are due to “the exceptional heat wave that has affected the country in recent days,” the EDF subsidiary said in a brief press release on Saturday evening. “Due to hot weather, and high temperature variations, there are tapping On the boxes and accessories that connect the cables between them, and make the cables drop, causing power cuts, “said Arnaud Baret, CGT Enedis Paris union delegate.
A strike in intervention agencies
But the weather is not the only explanation, because, in parallel, “three of the four Parisian intervention agencies are on strike (…), which does not help the rapid recovery of the lines,” he added. A movement that started on June 12.
According to the same source, Paris experienced more than 100 different cuts in the only day on Saturday. On the Enedis website At 11 p.m., there were still about sixty incidents under resolution, some of which are in the rue de Grenelle, where several ministries are located, and Place du Palais-Bourbon. They were still around fifty this Sunday morning.
“In addition to the heat effect, part of the cuts on the Parisian network are also due to the current modernization work in several places,” added a source of management, nevertheless admitting that an “social movement of Enedis agents disrupts the interventions of the manager of the electricity distribution network”.
According to Arnaud Baret, CGT Enedis Paris union representative, the conflict concerns the management’s project to question the organization of the penalty system and its financial compensation for the housing of agents. This specific system in Paris provides accommodation to payable employees in their intervention area with a clipped rent, allowing them to intervene 24 hours a day in the event of a localized breakdown, their public service mission forcing them to intervene as quickly as possible for private electricity residents.