Coordinated sabotage paralyzes French railways hours before Olympic opening ceremony
Some 250,000 locals and travelers affected by apparent arson attack; no immediate sign of direct link to Olympics, police say; tens of thousands of officers deployed for ceremony
France’s high-speed rail network was hit Friday with widespread and “criminal” acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe only hours before the grand opening ceremony of the Olympics.
As Paris authorities geared up for a parade of Olympians on and along the Seine River amid tightened security, three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est.
French officials described the fires as caused by “criminal actions” and said they were investigating whether they were linked to the Olympic Games, but that no direct link was immediately apparent.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz asserted on X Friday that the fires were “planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil,” but he did not provide any evidence for the claim besides a previous warning he has made of such a plot.
French Transportation Minister Patrice Vergriete described people fleeing from the scene of fires and the discovery of incendiary devices. “Everything indicates that these are criminal fires,” he said.
The incidents paralyzed several high-speed lines linking Paris to the rest of France and to neighboring countries, Vergriete said.
The Paris police prefecture “concentrated its personnel in Parisian train stations” after the “massive attack” that paralyzed the TGV high-speed network, Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police chief, told France Info television.
Travel to and from London beneath the English Channel, to neighboring Belgium, and across the west, north and east of France was affected by what the French national rail company SNCF called a series of coordinated overnight incidents.
Government officials denounced the acts, though they said there was no immediate sign of a direct link to the Olympics. National police said authorities were investigating the incidents.
French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera said authorities were working to “evaluate the impact on travelers, athletes, and ensure the transport of all delegations to the competition sites” for the Olympics.
Speaking on the BMF television station, she added: “Playing against the Games is playing against France, against your own camp, against your country.” She did not identify who was behind the vandalism.
SNCF said it did not know when traffic would resume and feared that disruptions would continue “at least all weekend.” SNCF teams “were already on site to carry out diagnostics and begin repairs,” but the “situation should last at least all weekend while the repairs are carried out,” the operator said.
SNCF advised “all passengers to postpone their journey and not to go to the station,” specifying in its press release that all tickets were exchangeable and refundable.
Valerie Pecresse, president of the regional council of the greater Paris region said “250,000 travelers will be affected today on all these lines.” Substitution plans were underway, but Pecresse advised travelers “not to go to stations.”
The incidents come amid a heavy security presence throughout Paris in advance of the Games.
A huge security perimeter has been erected along both banks of the Seine, guarded around the clock by some of the 45,000 police and paramilitary officers who will be on duty on Friday evening. Another 10,000 soldiers are set to add to the security blanket along with 22,000 private security guards.
Police snipers are set to be positioned on every high point along the route of the river convoy, which is overlooked by hundreds of buildings. Armed officers will also be on the boats, a security source told AFP.
The Israeli and Palestinian teams will be given extra protection, amid tension over the ongoing war in Gaza, which began on October 7 of last year, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
In a telephone briefing on Friday cited by the Ynet news site, President Isaac Herzog said he “has a lot of trust in the security infrastructure of the French and of the other states there, and also on the Olympic Committee, which has made an enormous effort.”
“There were attempts by hostile elements to damage the offices of the International Olympic Committee. If you stand strong and rigid, you push back everyone who is trying to sabotage you,” the president added.
Antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents have surged in France, as they have around the world, in the months since the attack that started the war. French police have also made several arrests on terrorism charges in recent months.
Organizers will be on guard against fresh protests, after the Israeli soccer team’s first match on Wednesday was marked by the waving of Palestinian flags and the booing of the Israeli anthem.
Israel has also dispatched Shin Bet agents to secure its athletes, who will work in cooperation with local French security and Parisian police forces, former Shin Bet official Lior Akerman said last week.
Sports and Culture Minister Miki Zohar told the Telegraph newspaper that the budget for Israel’s security team has been doubled since the Tokyo Games in 2021, and that preparations for the Games have been in the works for “more than a year.”
Israel’s National Security Council on Sunday told citizens traveling to Paris for the Olympics to exercise increased caution, warning that it believes that global jihadist and Iran-backed terror organizations “are seeking to carry out attacks on Israeli/Jewish targets around the Olympics.”
