What exactly happened?
Arson attacks on several high-speed lines. The attackers struck at Croisilles, which blocked the northern direction, at Courtalain in the Atlantic direction, and also at Pagny-sur-Moselle, from where traffic is controlled in the east of the country.
Sabotage was prevented in Vergigny, where TGV trains are heading in a south-easterly direction. The suspected arsonists there were disturbed by railway workers about an hour after midnight on Thursday.
BFM TV, citing police sources, said an incendiary device was found on the LGV line in Marseille in May, while the Olympic torch was in the city.
Photo: List of News
Map of locations where sabotage occurred.
How did the attacks go?
Not much is publicly known yet. SNCF rail director Jean-Pierre Farandou said around midday on Friday that the attackers started the fire in the tunnels where the optical fibers that provide train drivers with safety information on the tracks run.
“There are a huge number of bundles of cables. We have to fix them one by one. It is manual work requiring hundreds of people,” he was quoted as saying by AFP. According to the BBC, the attackers also targeted signal boxes.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has already started an investigation in connection with the attacks. Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said authorities had found a number of incendiary devices.
Who all were affected by the sabotage?
The carrier estimates about 800,000 people, a quarter of a million of them in the Île-de-France region. The attack took place a few hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, which will be hosted by Paris from Friday. A number of French people were also on their way from the capital in connection with this.
“We are diverting some trains on classic lines, but we will have to cancel a large number of them,” SNCF said already in the morning. For example, the sabotage affected a significant part of the connections between Paris and London.
The restriction also affected two of the four “Olympic” trains, which the athletes were supposed to use to travel to the French capital. However, the mayor of Paris, Anna Hidalgo, assured that the opening of the games in the evening will not be affected by sabotage.
Traffic is expected to return to normal on Monday.
Who could be behind the attacks?
That is not yet known. At the end of the crisis meeting at the Ministry of Transport, outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal urged caution regarding the identity of the perpetrators. “The investigation is just beginning,” he told the LCI channel. “What we do know is that this operation was prepared and coordinated and that key points were targeted, which shows the knowledge of the network,” he added.
The BBC server noted that France has no shortage of those who disagree with the government’s policies. In the last ten years, the country has been the target of several major attacks, but the authorities describe Friday’s arson as sabotage, not terrorism. No one died, so the Islamists are not at the top of the list of suspects.
The media also recalled the statements of President Emmanuel Macron in April, who said that he had no doubt that Russia would try to disrupt the Olympic Games “in some way”. Currently, however, no one has pointed in this direction.
What are the reactions?
The SNCF chief spoke of a “premeditated, calculated, coordinated” attack that will require significant repairs.
Leading French politicians also speak in a similar vein. Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete told TF1 that there had been no warning of “acts of ill will” but that they were now “basically prepared” for any further attacks.
🔴 SNCF disruptions: should we fear other attacks?
🗣️ “We are preparing for it. We had no specific alert before these planned acts of malice and sabotage. Today we have significantly increased vigilance”: @P_Vergriete pic.twitter.com/eZ4qVAaKv9— TF1Info (@TF1Info) July 26, 2024
Outgoing interior minister Gerald Darmanin said that in his view it was above all “the French people who are being punished on this bank holiday weekend by these clearly coordinated acts of sabotage”. He assured that “this has no direct impact on the organization of the Olympic Games”. “We spent a lot of resources trying to find out who did it,” he added.
“These are games for athletes who have dreamed of them for years and who are fighting for the holy grail of placing on the podium, and we will sabotage it for them,” Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera told BFM TV. She pointed out that several hundred thousand French people had been preparing for the Olympics for almost ten years.
With the contribution of Sára Sverenyaková.
