Mayhem as Paris rail network brought to standstill ‘Co-ordinated sabotage’ before Opening Ceremony
France’s high-speed rail network has been hit by a series of “malicious acts” including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, Parisian train operator SNCF said Friday.
A source close to the investigation told AFP the attacks were co-ordinated acts of “sabotage”.
Co-ordinated explosions on the rail network destroyed sections of nearly all the major routes into Paris from the west, north and east with most trains cancelled.
Authorities were able to foil another attempt on the south-east line.
“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.
“SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight,” the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines.
“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.
SNCF urged passengers to postpone their trips and stay away from train stations.
Similarly, Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects the UK with France, announced it had been forced to cancel and divert trains.
“Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high speed line between Paris and Lille, all high speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday 26 July,” the Eurostar statement read.
“This extends the journey time by around an hour and a half. Several trains have been cancelled.”
France’s Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra condemned the actions “in the strongest possible terms”.
“These Games are for the athletes who have been dreaming of them for years and fighting for the holy grail of standing on the podium — and someone’s sabotaging that for them,” she told broadcaster BFMTV.
She added the Olympics “have been prepared for so carefully by hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens for almost 10 years”.
She said the attacks were an attack specifically against the Games.
“We will assess the impacts for today, for the travelers, for the athletes for this weekend, the smooth travel of all the delegations,” she said.
“Playing against the Games is playing against France, it is playing against your own camp, it is playing against your country.”
Minister for Transport Patrice Vergriete said: “All the evidence we have clearly shows that this was deliberate: the timing, vans found with people who fled, particularly in the south-east, incendiary devices found on site. Everything indicates that these were arson attacks.”
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said police would step up security around train stations.
Around 45,000 police and paramilitary officers are expected to be on duty for the opening ceremony, while another 10,000 soldiers and 22,000 private security guards.
Approximately 35,000 police are expected to be deployed each day of the Games.
He added the acts were discovered at around 4am on Friday.
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.
At Paris’s Montparnasse train station, dozens of passengers were waiting for more information about their trips after delays of 30 minutes to almost two hours were announced.
“Normal traffic is expected to resume on Monday, July 29,” read one of the signs in the departure hall.
“We arrived around 7.00am but we were told that we might not be able to leave before Monday,” said 27-year-old student Jocelyn, who had planned to travel to Bretagne and refused to give her full name.
“We expected it to be a bit chaotic in Paris with the opening ceremony scheduled for this evening, but we didn’t think it could be this bad,” she said.
