Gérald Darmanin held an emergency meeting after the massive blackout of the orange network in France which affected emergency numbers. – CYRIL MOREAU-POOL / SIPA
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin chaired an interministerial meeting from Beauvau this Thursday morning, after the national telephone failure the day before which affected the emergency number services. Between 6 p.m. and midnight on Wednesday, a breakdown at the operator Orange had massively disrupted access to emergency numbers across France, such as Samu, firefighters or the police.
The Minister of the Interior deplored “serious and unacceptable” dysfunctions. He specified that there had been no interruption, but a great degradation and that an investigation was going to be opened. The minister also indicated that a person “would have died” in Morbihan for lack of being able to reach help.
Gérald Darmanin also called the French for a few days favored temporary ten-digit bypass numbers for their emergency calls.
Visiting Tunis with Jean Castex, Gérald Darmanin and the Secretary of State in charge of Digital Cédric O rushed back to Paris during the night to hold this crisis meeting this Thursday morning very early. For its part, Orange assured that its network “has been operating since midnight” but remains “under surveillance”.