A “technical anomaly” plunged major areas of Paris into darkness on Saturday evening as a blackout struck the City of Lights just one evening after the lewd LGBT-themed Olympic Opening Ceremony drew backlash from Christians around the world.
On Saturday evening, at around 11:40 Paris time, power was cut to tens of thousands of residents of the French capital. While there was initial speculation of potential sabotage, this has since been ruled out, with the local energy firm saying that it came as a result of a “technical anomaly.”
Energy provider Enedis told Le Parisien that “a network incident due to a technical anomaly has caused power cuts in… Paris, affecting nearly 85,000 customers.”
Enedis said that the blackout impacted people in the 1st arrondissement, the location of the Louvre Museum, the 9th arrondissement, the home of the Paris Opera, the 17th arrondissement, which partially contains the Arc de Triomphe, and the 18th arrondissement, the location of the Moulin Rouge cabaret and Montmartre hill.
Strikingly, pictures shared on social media appeared to show that during the blackout, the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre) remained lit as the surrounding areas were driven into darkness.
The church was constructed following a call from then-Bishop of Nantes Felix Fournier in 1870, in the wake of the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III to the Prussians. Bishop Fournier argued that a new basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was necessary to redeem France from the moral decay brought on by the French Revolution.
Many on social media linked the blackout in Paris with the controversial Olympic Opening Ceremony, which appeared to mock the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with a woke drag queen interpolation of the Biblical event.
Responding to the image of the Basilica shining out of the darkness on Saturday, Bishop Emeritus of Tyler Joseph Strickland commented: “The irony of an electrical power outage in Paris in the wake of the blasphemous [and] debauched opening ceremonies of the Olympics should be noted.
“The evil on display mocks God’s power and then the city is left powerless. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus guide us in His powerful Light.”
Others shared similar sentiments, including Mother Provincial of the American Province of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sr. Mary Joseph Calore who wrote on X: “God is in control.”
“Just twenty-four hours after the opening olympic debauchery in Paris, they get a blackout. The only lights that could be seen were on the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” she said.
Following intense backlash against the Olympics Opening Ceremony, the organisers of the show issued a half-hearted apology, saying: “If people have taken any offense, we are of course really sorry.”
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