During the night of Monday to Tuesday, high and medium voltage cables were set on fire under a bridge spanning the Isère between Villard-Bonnot and Bernin. An essential road axis for transport and travel in the Grésivaudan valley, and essential cables for supplying electricity to the towns of Bernin, Crolles as well as to the vast commercial and industrial zone located in these municipalities. Among the industries affected, and perhaps more particularly targeted, are the semiconductor specialists Soitec and ST Microelectronics, which had to cease production on Tuesday morning. Concerning the causes of the disaster, the Grenoble public prosecutor’s office makes the link with a fire, already, in the night from Sunday to Monday on an RTE transformer in Froges, in the same sector, accompanied by anarchist symbols drawn in paint and anti- ST Micro, accused of being too voracious in electricity. A fire a priori voluntary therefore and which reacts as much the economic world as the political one.
This is unacceptable – Christophe Ferrari
For the president of Grenoble Alpes Métropole Christophe Ferrari “This is unacceptable […] We can’t live under this threat […] We cannot be left, this Metropolis, subjected to this form of terrorism which degrades the collective good and who are in the idea of a world which is not the world of tomorrow anyway“. The president of the metropolis of Grenoble, on the territory of which these fires have been numerous in recent years, asks the authorities to act: “These investigations are no doubt complicated, but I have the intimate conviction that we can find“.
The community of communes of Grésivaudan affected on one of its important axes
In a press release the community of communes of Grésivaudan, chaired by Henri Baile, “lends its full support to the Nanotechnology sector of the territory and especially to ST and SOITEC hard hit by these fires and strongly condemns these criminal acts in the hope that the investigation will lead quickly“. On the side of ToutGo local public transport, a manager explains to us that “the impact is very significant since we have 4 lines that pass over the Brignoud bridge”. This Tuesday morning it was mainly schoolchildren who were impacted. “The high school students who were supposed to go to Villard-Bonnot could not go. The 4 coaches were blocked”. On the Brignoud side “there are the regular lines G2 and G3 which also pass over the bridge and which will be impacted with the services which will stop on one side and the other”. say that all the people who come by train to Brignoud station (Chambery-Grenoble line) to work on the other side in Crolles are blocked since in the current state it is not even possible to take the foot bridge.
It’s stupid – Jean-Marc, resident
Residents of the area woke up to an atmosphere of smoke, the smell of burning plastic and congested roads. Sylvie’s husband couldn’t come to work. “He couldn’t cross the Brignoud bridge because there were flames so he took the Champ-Pré-Froges detour“. Anyway he works at Soitec in Bernin and “when he arrived it was all black […] and around 7 o’clock they told them to go home“.”This morning, continues Sylvie, we have lots of ashes on the terrace, on the car, it’s black…“.
“It’s stupidsays Jean-Marc, another resident, because it impacts lots of people who just want to work quietly. I don’t see the point of doing that at all, even if it’s related to ST (ST Microelectronics)… It’s still one of the biggest companies in Europe, which still does things that we does more than here in this corner there so I do not see the point at all“.
At Soitec, the teams are busy to be able to restart as soon as possible
The fire in these cables cut off electricity to two major companies in Grésivaudan, and more broadly in the Grenoble basin: Soitec and ST Microelectronics. The production of semiconductors was stopped in the middle of the night at these two companies which employ several thousand people. At Soitec, 1,700 employees in Bernin, only the maintenance teams are at work. “These are situations for which we train, explains Thomas Piliszczuk, head of “global business” at Soitec and who manages the crisis unit, we have teams which are on site in the clean rooms to start preparing for the restart. We are still assessing the situation and depending on it, there may be lines that will restart earlier than others, but these are procedures that are in place. If the company has groups which make it possible to deal with micro-cuts, nothing can come to supply it when there are cuts lasting several hours”. Regarding security “the site here is very secure, explains Thomas Piliszczuk, but when it happens outside the site, on the power plant, it becomes much more complicated. Here it is the authorities who must take their responsibility and help us to secure absolutely everything”
Photos of witnesses on social networks
Here from Brignoud, in the middle of the night:
practical information