No more fixed and mobile telephones, no more internet and, for some, no more television. In Sermaize-les-Bains (Marne), a town of nearly 2,000 inhabitants, an Orange network outage cut off the inhabitants from the world. A problem which was revealed on Saturday April 16 in the morning and which could at least last until Wednesday April 20 according to Orange services.
The mayor, Saïd Yacoubi, became aware of the problem thanks to the gendarmes. They warned him that without internet or phone, they could no longer work. “Going to do some shopping in the village, I saw that no one had a network anymore“, explains the elected official. The gendarmerie had to settle temporarily 20 kilometers away, in Thiéblemont-Farémont.
No more payment by credit card possible
The professional activity of Jean-Paul Simon is also affected. He has been managing funeral directors since 1982 and concedes “I’ve never encountered problems like this, ever.” He cannot be reached either on his landline or on his mobile, which did not allow him to ensure the permanence of the Easter weekend. Because six months earlier, in October 2021, Sermaize-les-Bains had already faced a similar failure for six days. This time the problem was a cable pulled out by an excavator during work on the fibre.
A breakdown that affects other services, such as payment by credit card in certain businesses, dependent on the Internet network. No longer possible to withdraw cash or deposit a check at the bank. For all this, the Sermaiziens must go to the neighboring towns. “It annoys everyone“, explains Said Yacoubi.
The mayor is also worried about “the elderly in the village, if they have a problem at home, I don’t know how they are going to prevent it.“Orange explains this new outage due to a”technical incident in the neighboring town of Pargny-sur-Saulx.” An agent would have been dispatched to the scene on Saturday morning to find out the breakdown. The regional management hopes for a return to normal for this Monday, April 18, in the evening.