France’s high-speed rail network was on its knees on Friday morning after being hit by a series of fires in what Prime Minister Gabriel Attal described as “acts of sabotage” on the day of the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Approximately 1 million commuters were affected by indefinite delays on what is a key date in the diary for many French city dwellers to mark the beginning of their month-long summer break as many professionals embark on the grand depart and head for the mountains and the countryside.
Rail operator SNCF confirmed many routes had been hit by a “massive attack” aimed at “paralyzing” its network with traffic on the Atlantic, North, and East lines all “very disrupted.”
It confirmed that teams were on-site carrying out diagnostics and commencing repairs to the track but that it would not be a quick fix and commuters could expect significant disruptions to last “at least through the weekend.”
Several videos posted on social media show railway stations packed with commuters with nowhere to go, sparking chaos throughout the country.
“The consequences on the rail network are massive and serious,” wrote Prime Minister Attal on X. “I express my sincere gratitude to our firefighters who intervened on the affected sites and to the SNCF agents who will carry out the necessary work to restore the network.
“Our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts,” he added.
SNCF confirmed that routes had been hit in at least five locations across multiple lines and its diagnostics teams had found “incendiary devices” along several routes of the rail network including in Eure-et-Loir, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Pas-de-Calais, and Yonne.
“The modus operandi, arson on installations, resembles that used by the ultra-left in the past,” one security source told Le Parisien newspaper.
No details about those suspected of being behind the attack have yet been disclosed.
