Just before the Olympic Games began in Paris, parts of its high-speed rail network were sabotaged.
French officials are now looking into the possibility that leftist extremists targeted the rail system.
France is leaning towards the likelihood that far-left extremists were behind last week’s sabotage of the country’s SNCF rail network – which coincided with the Olympic Games opening ceremony – French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Monday.”We have identified the profiles of several people,” Darmanin told France 2 TV, regarding the hunt for those saboteurs.Far-left French anarchists have a history of targeting the train network with arson attacks.The attacks were “deliberate, very precise, extremely well-targeted”, Darmanin said. “This is the traditional type of action of the ultra-left,” he said.But when asked whether the profiles that were identified were close to the far left, Darmanin said: “We must be cautious.”
Reports indicate that the rail systems should be fully repaired before Tuesday.
National rail operator SNCF said in an update Sunday that it had completed repairs to the damaged infrastructure, clearing the path for full service to commence on Monday. Officials had previously said Monday was the target date for full restoration of the network.”Thanks to the exceptional mobilization of SNCF Réseau workers, who have been working tirelessly since Friday morning, repair work is now fully completed on all high-speed lines affected by the acts of sabotage. The test phases have been conclusive, and the lines can now be operated normally,” SNCF said in its statement.
France has one of the largest high-speed rail systems in the world. The sabotage has the potential to impact 800,000 people. The repair costs to the state-owned rail operator SNCF would be considerable.
According to reports, leftist extremists have been on the radar of agencies concerned about national security in recent years.
In recent years, France has mainly been targeted in attacks by Islamist militants, but security services have been increasingly concerned about far-left or anarchist groups, which typically oppose the state and capitalism.The then-head of France’s domestic intelligence agency, Nicolas Lerner, told Le Monde newspaper last year President Emmanuel Macron’s divisive 2023 pension shake-up had helped lure recruits to far-left groups, which have increasingly added environmental issues to their ideologies.”In recent years, the far-left movements have been known for particularly violent clandestine actions, including arson campaigns … ransacking and destruction of property,” Lerner, who now leads the foreign spy agency, said in the interview.In a 2023 report on terrorism trends, European police agency Europol said left-wing and anarchist groups typically attacked “critical infrastructure, such as repeaters and antennas, government institutions and private companies” with their “most common modus operandi” being arson and explosive devices.
Meanwhile, France’s telecoms network suffered isolated outages across the country after being targeted by vandals.
French media reports on Monday said telecom installations belonging to companies SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free had been vandalised, affecting mainly fixed-line services.The reports in Le Parisien newspaper and BFM TV said cables in electrical cabinets had been cut in southern France, and that installations in the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris had also been targeted.France’s telecoms regulator ARCEP said most of those affected used the SFR or Free networks.A police official also said at least six of France’s administrative departments were affected, including the region around the Mediterranean city of Marseille which is hosting football and sailing competitions for the Olympics.
Hopefully this will be the end of the leftist antics during these Olympics.
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