The Washington Post :
High-speed train lines in France were targeted by arson attacks early Friday, French officials said, causing massive travel disruptions hours before the Opening Ceremonies of the Paris Olympic Games.
Gabriel Attal, the French caretaker prime minister, said that “acts of sabotage” were carried out in a “prepared and coordinated manner.”
It was not immediately clear who was behind the suspected attacks and authorities did not announce any arrests. The public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation within its organized crime framework rather than a counterterrorism inquiry, indicating that range of individuals or groups – including political activists – could be responsible. Nobody was reported to have been injured, but French officials said the impact for travelers and the country’s reputation ahead of the Olympic Games are severe.
“The consequences on the rail network are massive and serious,” Attal said in a post on X, adding that “our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, however, asserted that the attacks would have “no impact” on the Opening Ceremonies set for Friday evening because the transportation networks inside the city were unaffected.
By early Friday afternoon local time, traffic on some impacted train lines had started to resume, state-owned railway company SNCF said, with a third of trains running on the Atlantic line and delays of an hour elsewhere.
France’s railway network was an obvious target ahead of the Opening Ceremonies. For weeks ahead of the Olympics, tickets into and out of Paris were unavailable for purchase for this Friday, with SNCF citing a lack of clarity about security measures.
SNCF said Friday’s “malicious acts” targeted three of its high-speed train lines, just as about 250,000 people were expected to travel Friday and 800,000 during the weekend.
“Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities,” SNCF said. Its Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines were affected, it said, and advised customers to postpone travel. SNCF said it also prevented another “malicious act” targeting the Southeast line. It noted that some disruptions are expected to last until Monday.
The last weekend of July is usually one of France’s busiest travel periods, as Parisians head off for vacation. Unlike in normal years, many travelers were also expected to head into the capital city, as well, to attend the Opening Ceremonies or Olympic competitions in the coming days.
“We have damage and intentional fires in pipes where a lot of cables pass, cables that are used for signaling,” Jean-Pierre Farandou, the head of SNCF, told reporters. “They must be repaired, cable by cable. It’s very delicate work.”
Before railway traffic can resume, Farandou said, all repaired signals will also need to be tested. “It takes time,” he said.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office said Friday that authorities are investigating “intentional damage caused to SNCF sites during the night of July 25 to 26.” The prosecutor’s office is looking into charges including “damage to property affecting the fundamental interests of the nation” and “attacks on an automated data processing system.” Each of these potential charges could carry a long prison sentence.
Jean Castex, the head of the Paris transport system and a former French prime minister, has ordered an “increased level of vigilance” across the capital region’s network. “We are deploying on all terrains,” he said, according to the French public broadcaster, with a particular focus “on the sensitive sites of our networks.”