The French government is considering whether the country is prepared for a blackout, with sources saying the simulation is planned for next year, Politico reports.
According to four anonymous sources, the French government is considering holding a theoretical simulation of a sudden, widespread power outage in the second half of 2027. The plans have not been made public at this time. The simulation would involve French grid operators Enedis and RTE, as well as several government departments, ministries and the French army high command.
The simulation would aim to see how the country would react during a widespread power outage. Portugal and Spain suffered a similar blackout in April 2025, and Poland suffered a major cyberattack on its energy infrastructure last year. Brussels has linked the cyberattack to Russian intelligence.
A person familiar with the preparations said the simulation would test the country’s response capacity, adding that the simulation was designed to assess how long it would take to restore power supplies and the country’s ability to provide critical services.
The crisis simulation was formally approved at an inter-ministerial meeting on the 8th of July,
and a detailed statement is expected to follow by the end of this year. Other priorities were also outlined during the meeting, such as maintaining access to essential goods, including blankets, generators, medicines, communications equipment, law enforcement equipment, and critical raw materials.
France has been hit by heat waves and widespread forest fires, and crisis preparedness has become a political issue, forcing the country to assess its ability to respond to emergencies.
Last summer, France updated its National Resilience Strategy, which outlines how to maintain critical societal functions in the event of war or natural disasters. Since the beginning of this summer, many regions of France have broken temperature records, and more than 200,000 people have been evacuated due to wildfires in the southwest of the country caused by extreme heat and drought.
The mayor of Paris, fearing that emergency services will run out of ice to cool victims of heatstroke, has called on food retailers to mobilise ice stocks. Meanwhile, opposition parties have not hesitated to attack the government for its lack of preparedness. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has announced that the government will submit a bill to parliament to improve the emergency response system.
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