France’s high-speed train lines paralysed by ‘malicious acts’

July 26, 2024

France’s high-speed rail network was hit by “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system, train operator SNCF said Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

A source close to the investigation told AFP the attacks were coordinated acts of “sabotage”.

“This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network,” SNCF told AFP, adding that many routes will have to be cancelled. “Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities,” it said, adding that traffic on the affected lines was “heavily disrupted” and the situation would last through the weekend as repairs are conducted. Trains were being diverted to different tracks “but we will have to cancel a large number of them”, the statement said.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez, speaking on France Info radio, said he would send police reinforcements to overcrowded train stations in relation to the SNCF incidents.

The attacks were launched as Paris was under heavy security ahead of the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, with 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs expected at the event.

The parade on Friday evening will see up to 7,500 competitors travel down a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine on a flotilla of 85 boats.

It will be the first time a Summer Olympics has opened outside the main athletics stadium, a decision fraught with danger at a time when France is on its highest alert for terror attacks.

The “coordinated” sabotage follows warnings that foreign countries whose athletes have been barred from the opening ceremony, notably Russia, would seek to disrupt the Games.

…an alleged Russian spy was arrested earlier this week. Kirill Gryaznov, 40, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with working ‘with a foreign power to try and incite hostilities in France’ after being identified as working for the FSB, Vladimir Putin‘s domestic intelligence agency.

Gryaznov – who denies any wrongdoing – is said to have boasted about turning the start of the Paris Olympics into ‘an opening ceremony like no other’.