Attack on French railway threatens more chaos: officials

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – French railway officials warned of traffic chaos for hundreds of thousands of people throughout the weekend after saboteurs, following an elaborate plan, paralyzed much of the rail network on Friday, when the Olympic Games began.

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There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the arson attacks on cable boxes at intersections strategically chosen to the north, southwest and east of the capital, where the Olympic opening ceremony was held on Friday evening. Railway workers thwarted a fourth attempt to destroy safety equipment.

Railway company SNCF called it a “powerful attack”.

“Our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these crimes,” Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X, calling the attacks “prepared and coordinated acts of sabotage.”

Flights from Paris to most of France have been massively cancelled and delayed.

Eurostar said it had withdrawn about a quarter of its trains between London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. It expects to cancel about a fifth of trains over the weekend, with all services facing delays.

With one of France’s busiest holiday travel weekends clashing with the start of the Olympics, SNCF said about a quarter of trains would be canceled on Saturday and Sunday on the affected lines. Those that do run will face delays.

The company said thousands of workers were working to repair the damage and try to restart services. It estimated about 250,000 passengers were affected on Friday. Junior Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said 800,000 people could face the effects within three days.

The coordinated attacks were carried out at 4:00 a.m. (02:00 GMT).

In each of these locations, the perpetrators targeted the optical fibre cables that carry safety information to drivers and control changes to trains, said Jean-Pierre Farandou, CEO of SNCF.

Gerard Due, mayor of Croisilles in northern France, one of the sites attacked, said the attackers had specialist equipment that allowed them to reach the cables and then “poured flammable liquid on them”.

Vergriete said the saboteurs were spotted with “vans” and “incendiary devices were found at the scene.”

A similar sabotage attack occurred in Germany last year and in eastern France in January 2023.

The attacks left passengers stranded at stations in Paris and many cities in eastern, western and northern France.