Thousands of French people find themselves without an Internet connection. The telecom operators Free and SFR were victims on Wednesday of an “act of vandalism” on their fiber infrastructure in the Marseille region, having caused “strong disturbances” on the Internet network.
“An act of vandalism on our fiber infrastructure has caused major service disruptions since last night (degradation of service and fixed/mobile bandwidth) in the Marseille region,” said the operator Free on its Twitter account.
“Our teams have been mobilized since 3 a.m.,” he added, indicating that “legal action will be taken”, without saying more. The operator SFR confirmed that it was also affected by the cut of a “long distance network” in the south-east region.
Malicious acts on an unprecedented scale
“Teams are on site, operations have begun” to restore traffic, the company said. At the end of the day, the Zone ADSL site had recorded more than 4,600 breakdowns on the fixed Internet in France in the past 24 hours, mainly disturbing the customers of the operator Free and SFR. Contacted, the operators Orange and Bouygues Telecom indicated that they were not victims of disturbances.
Malicious acts on an unprecedented scale on the national fiber optic network in France had led to slowdowns and cuts in Internet access in several major cities in April, particularly in the east of the country.
An investigation had been opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office for “deterioration of property likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation”, “obstructing an automated data processing system” and “criminal association”. At the heart of the global network of submarine cables, Marseille is one of the main Internet hubs that host many large French data centers.