French mobile network hit by major technical disruption

French telecommunications operator Orange said Wednesday that a "major technical incident" had disrupted its mobile network since late morning, affecting calls, text messages and mobile services.

"It is severely disrupting calls, SMS messages, and mobile services for a significant portion of its customers, both residential and business. Emergency calls are not affected," Orange said in a news release.

The company said its technical teams were "fully mobilized" to restore services as quickly as possible.

Nearly 12,000 reports were logged on the outage-tracking website Downdetector at the height of the disruption, according to French broadcaster BFMTV.

The operator was not investigating a cyberattack as the likely cause of the outage, instead leaning toward a technical problem.