France “excludes nothing” in its response to the massive October cyberattacks against supermarket refrigerators that it blames on Iran, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Tuesday.
The French government summoned Iran’s ambassador on Tuesday morning after Paris said Monday that the findings of an investigation blamed the hacks on Shahid Kaveh, an affiliate of the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps’ cyber unit.
Barrot told Franceinfo radio that the French government could respond by banning entry into European territory and freezing the assets of anyone held responsible, to deter any further malicious acts against the region.
Investigation points to Iranian hackers
Remote hacks at about 700 grocery stores on the night of October 11-12 caused refrigerators and freezers to heat up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
Rising temperatures have spoiled food and sparked fires, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. Major French distributors, including Intermarché, E. Leclerc, CrossroadsMonoprix and Coopérative U were targeted.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office is seeking international arrest warrants, said Paris Attorney General Laure Beccuau in a press release.
A customer enters an Intermarché supermarket in Issy-les-Moulineaux, a Paris suburb, on October 12, 2026, following a cyberattack affecting French supermarket chains Intermarché and Coopérative U which caused their refrigerators to defrost.
Dimitar Dilkoff | Afp | Getty Images
Investigators discovered the use of Farsi and IP addresses pointing to devices in Iran, according to the statement, which added that the attacks were carried out to serve a foreign power, in this case Iran.
The hacks targeted refrigeration controllers supplied by Danfoss and Dixell, with the attackers taking remote control of the equipment via web interfaces and starting unlimited defrost cycles while disabling security alerts on sensors designed to activate when temperatures exceed a set threshold, it said.
France proposes new sanctions against Iran
The French government also announced on Monday that it would propose new European sanctions against any Iranian entity or individual involved, and that it would summon the Iranian ambassador.
“France condemns in the strongest terms the unacceptable cyberattacks carried out on its territory by the Islamic Republic of Iran against its interests,” the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“This is a campaign unprecedented in its scale and level of aggressiveness, thus constituting the first cyber-offensive campaign carried out with the sole aim of sabotage on national territory.”
“This actor poses a persistent threat to our critical infrastructure. These destructive cyberattacks are unjustifiable, inexcusable and violate international law,” the ministry said.
CNBC has contacted the Iranian government for comment.
France attributes several previous cyberattacks against the country to Iran-based actors, including cyberattacks and “information manipulation campaigns” against the newspaper Charlie Hebdo in 2023 and the Paris Olympics in 2024. These led to sanctions in March 2026 against the private Iranian company Emennet Pasargad.
Vulnerability of European infrastructures
Other supermarket refrigerators elsewhere in Europe were targeted in November, with stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland and Sweden reporting losses.
French blood banks were also hit on November 2 by cybersecurity attacks, the French Blood Establishment said.
Temperature and defrost thresholds for cold storage units used to store blood products and samples for healthcare facilities and biobanks were “set at excessively high levels”, the EFS said in a statement translated from French to English by CNBC.
European leaders and the public have meanwhile been rocked by a wave of bomb threats that prompted dozens of passenger flights to make emergency landings.
“It seems like this could be a fairly unsubtle message from hostile actors to European governments warning that they have the ability to interfere with critical infrastructure and disrupt essential services whenever they want,” Simon Edwards, CEO of cybersecurity testing lab SE Labs, said in an emailed comment.
“Whether this is an attempt to intimidate governments or a preparation for something bigger, it shows how vulnerable our infrastructure can be.”
“The lack of basic cybersecurity hygiene is the key factor that makes these attacks possible. Why were these refrigerators connected to the internet in the first place and accessible without a password?”
— CNBC’s Emma Graham and Sawdah Bhaimiya contributed to this story.
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