260,000 homes still without electricity as France braces for new Storm Domingos

Some 260,000 homes were still without electricity on Saturday – mainly in Brittany and Normandy – following the passage of Storm Ciaran and the imminent arrival of Storm Domingos. 

Tree branches on a damaged car during Storm Ciaran in Clohars-Carnoet, Brittany, France, 2 November, 2023. REUTERS - STEPHANE MAHE

According to the public electricity distribution network operator Enedis, "At 8 a.m., 260,000 customers were still without power, mainly in Brittany (200,000) and Normandy (51,000)."

"78 percent of customers have been restored since the storm hit," Enedis added, which represents more than 900,000 homes after mobilising some 3,400 employees and service providers since the storm made landfall on Thursday morning.

A previous Enedis report showed that 325,000 customers were without electricity at 6pm on Friday, compared with 1.2 million on Thursday morning after the storm had passed. 

However, by this Saturday evening, Météo-France will place 10 new départements under orange alert as Storm Domingos approaches, bringing "violent gusts of wind" along the entire Atlantic seaboard.

🟠 #Domingos : en fin de journée ce samedi et pendant la nuit, des #vents soutenus sont attendus à l’Ouest du pays, ainsi que de fortes vagues.

Attention également aux fortes précipitations en Corse et aux vagues-submersion en Méditerranée.

Notre point : https://t.co/BXXlk785c3 pic.twitter.com/j2PKeYEjew

— Météo-France (@meteofrance) November 4, 2023

• Death toll rises as Storm Ciaran sweeps across Western Europe

'Remain vigilant'

Storm Ciaran claimed the lives of at least two people in France and left a trail of damage that will take several days to clear.

On Friday, President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Finistère in Brittany, which was the worst-hit département, called on people across France to "remain extremely vigilant" over the coming days.

"We have a battle on our hands, which is to restore normal life as quickly as possible," he said, aiming in particular to restore electricity to 90% of the affected homes by Monday.

Also on Friday, government spokesman Olivier Véran spoke of "fairly variable situations, with some places where repairs will be able to be made in the next few hours and others, particularly in Finistère, where the power lines have been completely chopped up."

Finistère accounted for "more than half" of the homes without electricity in Brittany, he added.