Paris Olympics: arson attacks bring chaos to French rail network before opening ceremony | BBC News

France’s high-speed rail network was thrown into chaos, hours before the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, by a series of coordinated arson attacks.

The saboteurs struck away from the capital at five apparently unguarded places. France's state-owned rail company SNCF says the saboteurs vandalised or targeted five signal boxes and electricity installations.

France's TGV high-speed train services ground to a halt on major lines and stranded passengers filled the main concourses at Gare Du Nord and Gare Montparnasse, two of the major rail hubs in Paris for travellers on the main lines running north and west of the capital.

The caretaker Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the repercussions for the rail network were massive and serious, and France's intelligence services and forces of order had been deployed to "find and punish those behind these criminal acts". It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks.

The sabotage took place despite a massive security operation to protect the Olympics. Streets in the centre of Paris have been blocked off, metro stations closed and thousands of police, soldiers and other guards deployed to maintain security on the big showpiece day launch the Olympic Games.

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Andrew Harding and Gordon Corera.

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[chrisgibson]

I'm shocked the BBC said violent islamists

[unknownhuman]

Opening ceremony was by itself chaotic .

[Tymbus]

Oh no! Not "delibarate sabotage"! That's the worst kind of sabotage!

[michaelmelton]

After what France did to our Olympics, I don't care about their country!

[utubebroadcaster]

The opening ceremony was painfully long - it really did drag on!

[johnross]

The opening ceremony was a disgrace.
Would they have mocked Islam the way they blatantly mocked Christianity?
No, because we all know full well what would happen 😡
Boycott the games folks!!!
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧

[robertarthur]

If anyone thinks these games are going to be amazing and free from attacks are deluded.

[winadam]

If only there was a word derived from French to explain what has happened!

[CarinaCoffee]

I think it was last year when some of the high speed train network in Germany was disrupted by tampering of cables. If I remember correctly it happened in two different states at the same time, which is why there was no backup available. They figured it had been an inside job too, because the locations weren't common knowledge and they targeted the main and the backup.

[Bendog]

Russians ! Are u kidding ! The French government have damaged the games all by themselves!

[elenadunn]

And did you also notice that the leitmotif of the whole event called "Olympic opening" was a grandiose spit at Christianity, religion in general, culture and civilization?
At the Paris Olympics, a crowd of trans people parodied "The Last Supper" and the opening of the Olympics itself was turned into LGBT hysteria.
At the end of the 20th century, the Olympic movement was revived by the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin. At the World Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, de Coubertin began a series of congresses on physical education, four years later he made a public appeal to revive the Olympic Games.
They began in France, and they ended in France. And during the ceremonial raising of the Olympic flag, it was placed upside down, which is especially symbolic.

[MrStark-upfi]

Sabotage and not terrorism depending on the ethnicity of the perpetrator smh

[Getagrip]

They were mocking god for fun huh?...Now be ready for the consequences

[COCOFINANCE]

Who did that,
that’s not nice,
leave the railway alone

[thomasshepard]

Anyone with a brain 🧠 would not go anywhere near the Paris Olympic Games why was there no backup system to the rail network

[sthcalguy]

I can't believe anyone went to these Olympics.

[shakibulhasan]

seems this guy is blaming on muslims . But in their religion even bad behavior is not allowed .

[quantisedspace]

Very impressed that the French enginees managed to start work on the problem in hours.

Can't imagine this happening in GB..Still on mechanical semaphore signals where I live, far from fibre optics

[reaktii]

**French rail unions and laborers have been staging protests, strikes, and demonstrations for the last couple of years.

French: "This must be Russian sabotage!"

[silvershoes]

For some reason, I have a really bad feeling about this Olympics :(