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The Cuban portal Cubadebate has reported on a post by the leader of the French political movement La Francia Insumisa, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who denounces that the shipping company CMA CGM is holding spare parts intended for the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas.
The Cuban regime quickly turned the incident into its favorite argument: the blame for the breakdown of the Guiteras is on the U.S. embargo.
Mélenchon posted on X: "No French aid. The fear of Trump. The replacement parts for the French power plant installed there are in containers that CMA CGM from Saadé no longer wants to deliver. However, France had promised."
The French politician, who announced his fourth presidential candidacy just on May 3 -a little over a year before the French elections of 2027-, thereby turns his solidarity with Havana into a campaign gesture with a known recipient.
What neither Mélenchon nor Cubadebate explains is the specific reason why CMA CGM suspended its cargo bookings to Cuba: Executive Order 14404, signed by Trump on May 1, which expanded sanctions against Cuba and increased the risk of secondary sanctions for any foreign company doing business with GAESA, the Cuban military conglomerate that controls between 40% and 70% of the Island's economy.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set June 5 as the deadline for companies to sever ties with GAESA. In light of this risk, both CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd suspended their cargo bookings to and from Cuba between May 14 and May 18. According to Reuters, this measure could impact up to 60% of Cuban maritime traffic.
The parts are not held up by an act of sabotage: they are trapped because no European private company wants to risk Washington's sanctions by doing business with the military apparatus that governs Cuba.
But there is one more uncomfortable question that the regime does not answer: why has the Guiteras been without the necessary major maintenance for 16 years?
The last comprehensive maintenance of the plant was in 2010. Its own director, Román Pérez Castañeda, acknowledged that 180 days of downtime are needed for that work, something that the authorities admit they cannot afford.
The result is a series of breakdowns that no one can hide anymore. The Guiteras went offline again on Sunday, May 25 due to a leak in the economizer, just six days after being synchronized to the National Electro-Energetic System on May 18. So far in 2026, the plant has experienced at least nine breakdowns.
On May 24, a new breakdown at 4:12 am left the system without its main generator. Director Pérez Castañeda insisted that "these are not poorly executed repairs," claiming that the breakdowns occur in different locations. This explanation does not convince anyone who has been without electricity for months.
The impact on the population is profound.
On May 25, the Electric Union forecasted an impact of 2,147 MW during the peak nighttime hours, with a barely available capacity of 1,133 MW against an estimated demand of 3,250 MW. Seventy-six percent of the circuits in Matanzas had been without power for over 50 hours. In Havana, service was interrupted for 23 hours and 11 minutes on Sunday, May 24.
While the regime waves the banner of the embargo to explain some parts held in France, the question remains: with or without those parts, who is responsible for the fact that Cuba's main thermoelectric plant has gone 16 years without the maintenance it requires?
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