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Louise Thomas
Editor
Fibre optic cables have been vandalised across France just days after the country’s railway was heavily disrupted by a number of arson attacks.
Cables in electrical cabinets were cut across southern France, as well as the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris, according to reports.
It comes after France’s high-speed rail network was hit by a series of attacks on Friday which left up to 800,000 passengers facing delays during the Paris Olympics.
On Monday, France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin suggested a far-left activist had been arrested in connection with the “coordinated” sabotage.
A series of fires brought trains to a halt, causing the cancellation of multiple services linking Paris to the rest of France as well as neighbouring countries.
Three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est as Paris authorities geared up for a parade along the Seine River for the opening ceremony amid tightened security.
The disruption particularly affected Paris’s major Montparnasse station. Videos posted on social media showed the station hall crammed with passengers.
Travel to and from London beneath the English Channel, to neighbouring Belgium, and across the west, north, and east of France was affected.
One in four Eurostar trains were cancelled over the weekend, as passengers at London St Pancras station faced 90-minute delays.
Describing the consequences for the rail network as “massive and serious”, French prime minister Gabriel Attal vowed authorities would “find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts”.
He said the vandals behind the sabotage and arson on Friday had the clear objective of strategically targeting the main routes to and from Paris ahead of the Games. It is unclear if the two incidents are connected.
A 40-year-old Russian man suspected of planning to sabotage the Games was arrested on Wednesday – however, French police have not publicly stated any link between the Russian national’s arrest and the arson attack. The Kremlin said it needed more information from authorities in Paris on the case.
Valerie Pecresse, president of the regional council of the Greater Paris region, added: “This attack is not a coincidence, it’s an effort to destabilise France.”
The chief executive of France’s rail operator SNCF said the fires were “a premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack” that indicated “a desire to seriously harm” the French people.
The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris is set to be the biggest event ever organised in France, with 10,500 athletes competing and millions of spectators attending – as many as 15.3 million visitors, according to local reports.
The two-and-a-half-week festival of sport involves 32 different disciplines and will conclude on 11 August after 329 events.
More than 300,000 spectators are expected to line the banks of the River Seine on Friday when the athletes parade through the heart of Paris on a flotilla of barges and riverboats, part of an extravagant opening ceremony that will be watched by a global audience.
France is deploying 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents to secure the Games, with snipers on rooftops and drones keeping watch from the air.
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