Dozens of Eco-Activists Arrested –

Dozens of people have been arrested in France for planning to disrupt the Olympic Games, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said. Security forces have arrested about 50 people, Darmanin told France 2 television. They wanted to carry out “sabotage actions or radical protests” during the first Olympic competitions, but authorities prevented them, he said. The newspaper Le Parisien reported that 45 members of the radical environmental movement Extinction Rebellion were arrested. They had planned protests against the social and ecological consequences of the Olympics.

Environmentalists from the French group ‘Extinction Rebellion’ later announced that they were canceling the protest action scheduled for today at Pont des Arts, on the Seine, in the heart of the capital. The organization announced this on its X account, highlighting how the decision was taken “following the repression of activists, even before the demonstration began.” On the social network ‘Extinction Rebellion’ also refers to “preventive arrests of activists and journalists” who had not been previously reported.

The newspaper Le Figaro reported that a far-left activist was arrested on Sunday in Oissel, about 121 kilometers northwest of Paris. The man was arrested at a French national train station or an SNCF headquarters and had “access keys to SNCF technical rooms” along with “bolts and a set of universal keys” in his vehicle along with information material linked to the far left. The Paris prosecutor’s office said this arrest was not linked to the investigation into the arson attacks that disrupted traffic on Friday hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, affecting hundreds of thousands of travelers. No arrests have yet been made in that incident, the office said. Darmanin also told France 2 that his office has a clearer picture of who may have been behind the attacks. “We have identified a number of profiles of individuals who may have carried out these very deliberate and highly targeted acts of sabotage,” he said.