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French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gérard Darmanin at the fire station in Paris: "We lament the victims"
Photo: ELIOT BLONDET / AFP
In France, the emergency numbers could not be reached for hours due to a malfunction at the telecommunications company Orange.
France's Health Minister Olivier Véran spoke of three to four deaths in the wake of the failure.
A two and a half year old child died in western France, as the prefecture of the Vendée administrative district announced.
"We mourn the victims who can probably be traced back to this serious incident," said Prime Minister Jean Castex after an emergency meeting in Paris.
According to his information, investigations were initiated into all four deaths.
The telephone network was now "under control," Castex said.
But it is too early to draw conclusions and make a connection to the breakdown.
According to the French news agency AFP, President Emmanuel Macron also said it was too early to take stock of the situation, but they were concerned.
"We have to investigate the causes and find ways to prevent something like this from happening again," said Castex, who together with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Digital Minister Cédric O discussed the incident.
Disturbances since Wednesday evening
There had already been problems with the emergency numbers by early Wednesday evening.
On Thursday night, around 400 replacement numbers were set up in order to continue to reach the fire brigade, police or emergency doctor.
On Thursday afternoon, Darmanin announced on Twitter that there were still isolated disruptions, but the situation had improved.
Darmanin described the disturbances as severe and unacceptable.
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The two and a half year old toddler died of cardiopulmonary failure in the community of Chavagnes-en-Paillers south of the city of Nantes.
The mother had previously tried unsuccessfully to call the emergency services for an hour.
As for the toddler, medical rescue is said to have come too late for three other heart patients because of the emergency call breakdown.
According to the government, a 63-year-old in Brittany and two people on the French island of La Réunion were affected.
According to Darmanin, however, it is unclear whether it took a particularly long time for the rescue workers to arrive in the cases on La Réunion.
The exact cause of the breakdown was initially unknown.
Because of the failure, the head of the telecom provider Orange, Stéphane Richard, was summoned to the Ministry of the Interior.
Orange - the former state-owned company France Télécom - apologized to customers.
Richard ruled out an external attack on the TF1 transmitter.
Rather, it is a software breakdown.
The network is being monitored more intensively, but the services are fully functioning again.
Richard apologized for the incident on Twitter.
The disorder now pulls demands for clarification behind it.
Darmanin wants to investigate the incident.
The public prosecutor in Vannes announced that they would open an investigation after a death had occurred in the Breton town, as AFP reported
kha / dpa / AFP
