A new arson in the Drôme affected a technical room of the Orange group, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in Crest.
The day before, another antenna had been attacked in Gigors-et-Lozeron in the same department.
The fire, which "generated significant damage to the building and to the equipment of the telephone dispatcher," affected more than 6,000 customers on the fixed network and the Internet, the Orange group said in a press release on Wednesday, which immediately dispatched its teams for the first repairs.
The mobile network was “also disrupted” in the disaster area which, besides Crest, includes the municipalities of Die, Eurre, Divajeu, Solaure-en-Diois, and Aouste-sur-Sye, he adds, specifying that an investigation has been opened.
In the Gigors-et-Lozeron area north of Crest, around 500 Orange mobile network customers were deprived of service overnight from Monday to Tuesday and around 30 for the fixed network and Internet.
The gendarmerie is responsible for the investigation.
The imprint of the ultra-left in these files
Numerous arson fires have targeted telephone installations, in particular relay antennas, in France in recent months.
Some of these actions have been claimed by the ultra-left.
“Base stations are among all the intruders that disfigure landscapes.
They are used for mass communication, soon even in the most remote places.
Currently the 5G installations are deployed for this purpose, indicated in May 2020 a text published on the anarcho-libertarian platform Indymedia after a fire in Isère.
We do not want a world where the guarantee of being able to communicate constantly and everywhere remotely is exchanged for the fact of being able to be constantly monitored and controlled ”.
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In 2020, the authorities had identified a hundred voluntary damage to telephone towers across the country.
"The ultra-left has experience," recently underlined in our columns a officer of the gendarmerie.
They don't leave a trace, are difficult to trace, but everything leads to them.
The confinement and the rise of teleworking have accelerated the construction of relay antennas in previously deserted areas.
And reinforced the animosity and anger of these activists who are often supporters of direct action.