Power cuts may well come sooner than expected. Thursday evening, December 8, a whole part of Paris found itself in the dark. While the fear of load shedding is spreading more and more across the territory, several districts of the capital have experienced power cuts.

But beyond individuals, all street lights have also been cut, leaving entire neighborhoods without light. “I didn’t think the load shedding would be so fast!”, The mayor of Paris Center, Ariel Weil, quipped on Twitter.

If this event looked like a general rehearsal for the Parisians concerned, the manager of the RTE network in Ile-de-France denied this hypothesis. “The incident has nothing to do with the load shedding,” he told our colleagues from Figaro.

In reality, this power cut is due to a “damage that occurred around 10:15 p.m.” which would have deprived homes in south-east Paris of electricity, RTE said on the social network recently bought by billionaire Elon Musk.

“In question, damage to an Enedis transformer. 125,000 homes without electricity at the height of the incident”, added the group, specifying that the return to normal was around 11 p.m. in the 3 arrondissements. , 4 and 5, impacted by the cut.

If this cut had no connection with a dress rehearsal, it should however take place this Friday, December 9. But what is it about?

This Friday, December 9, the electricity network operator RTE and Enedis will conduct a national exercise with the aim of anticipating the risks of cuts that could occur this winter.

Concretely, a simulation will be carried out. It will make it possible to identify the gaps in electrical production on maps. “It is the dispatchers, our agents who direct the electricity into the network, who will simulate a load shedding with their computers”, thus specified Enedis to CNEWS.

But will these tests affect the French?

Enedis and RTE have announced that there will be no recourse to power cuts on Friday December 9. Thus, despite the tests deployed across France, no impact should be observed for individuals.

While these power cuts could well take place in the weeks or months to come, Xavier Piechaczyk, the chairman of the management board of RTE France, nevertheless recalled this week that “it was normal to prepare, but that power cuts were, however, avoidable. Thus, it is better to keep the right gestures and reduce your electricity consumption as much as possible.