- author, Paul Kirby
- role, BBC News
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Roads in central Paris were closed, metro stations were closed and thousands of police, soldiers and other security personnel were on duty on the grand opening day of the Olympics.
But the saboteurs struck five apparently unguarded locations away from the capital.
France’s national rail company, SNCF, said saboteurs had damaged or attempted to damage five signal boxes and electrical equipment between 1 a.m. and 5.30 a.m. on Friday.
One of the sites is in Courtallan, east of Le Mans and 150km southwest of Paris, where local community social media pages posted pictures showing burnt-out electricity cables dumped in a shallow ditch with SNCF paving stones protecting them.
SNCF said there had been “large-scale, widespread attacks” aimed at paralysing its services, including arson and theft targeting cables, not only in Courtallan but also in the villages of Pagny-sur-Moselle, on the outskirts of the eastern city of Metz, and Croisilles, near the northern city of Arras.
Although it is a small site, it is located at a large junction of the high-speed TGV network.
Another attempted attack, at another TGV junction in Verginy, southeast of Paris, was thwarted by SNCF workers who happened to be on site carrying out maintenance work early on Friday morning.
The sabotage was clearly planned and had an immediate impact on one of the busiest days imaginable for France’s highly acclaimed rail system.
SNCF president Jean-Pierre Farandou said the attack was “planned, calculated and coordinated” and required significant repair work.
Image source, Courtesy of the City of Valdières
Friday, July 26th Grand Department Store It was a big day for many French holidaymakers leaving the city, and it also marked the opening ceremony, a highlight that Paris Olympic organizers have been preparing for years.
Hundreds of stranded passengers filled the main concourses of Gare du Nord and Gare Montparnasse, Paris’ two biggest rail hubs for travellers taking lines heading north and west of the city.
Passengers at Gare du Nord station patiently waited for news about delays to trains across France, as well as to London, Brussels and Amsterdam.
The much-vaunted high-speed TGV network, which runs from Paris to Lille in the north, Le Mans in the west and Strasbourg in the east, has been halted.
An SNCF official at nearby Gare de l’Est, which serves the east, said the company had diverted high-speed TGV trains to other, slower routes, which would cause long delays and disruptions but keep the network running.
By the afternoon, trains in all three directions had gradually resumed service, but with limited services, delays of up to two hours, and some services still cancelled.
“All indications are that these fires were deliberately set,” Transport Minister Patrice Vergliette said. “The timing [of the attacks]A van was recovered after people fled, incendiary devices were found at the scene.”
This was clearly an act of sabotage, clearly timed to cause serious disruption on a day when Paris was set to show its best to the world.
Image source, David Ramos/Getty Images
Interim Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the impact on the rail network was huge and serious and that French intelligence and security forces had been deployed to “find and punish those behind these criminal acts.”
French authorities have been on alert for months for possible attempts to sabotage the Olympics.
The group warned throughout the spring that several groups were trying to disrupt Olympic events, including the torch relay taking place across France in the run up to the opening ceremony.
It emerged that an incendiary device had been found on the high-speed TGV line between Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, on the same day the Olympic torch was due to arrive in the major southern French port on May 8.
French television reported that several bottles filled with a yellow liquid were found four kilometers (2.5 miles) outside Aix.
Image source, REUTERS/Brian Snyder
But who wants to ruin the plans of hundreds of thousands of French tourists and disrupt the start of the Olympics?
One security source suggested to French media that the arson attack had all the hallmarks of a far-left attack.
However, Attal refused to speculate on who was behind the sabotage.
He urged the public to err on the side of caution as the investigation was still in its early stages, but said the fact that the saboteurs had targeted the “nervous point” of the high-speed network showed they knew where it was vulnerable to attack.
Russia has been implicated in at least two plots in France in recent weeks.
Last month, a Ukrainian of Russian descent was arrested at a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport on suspicion of links to Russian subversive activities.
Just this week, a Russian man was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a “destabilization” plot targeting the Olympics.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said the suspect was suspected of “planning destabilisation, interference and espionage” on behalf of Russia’s FSB intelligence service.
So far, French authorities have not linked Friday’s attack to Russia.
Darmanin said this month that 3,570 people had been banned from taking part in the Olympics, including those deemed security risks and “dozens of extremists close to Islamist, far-left and far-right groups.”
Ahead of the Olympics in Paris, around one million people, from athletes and coaches to Olympic volunteers, underwent security checks.
But preventing vandalism in unguarded rural areas is an entirely different prospect.
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