Arson attacks halt trains across France ahead of Olympics opening

Posted by Admin July 26, 2024 Infra

France’s state-owned rail company SNCF says a ‘massive attack’ aimed at paralysing the high-speed network is causing delays and cancellations.

A series of coordinated arson attacks on the train infrastructure of France’s largest rail company, SNCF, caused a significant number of trains to be re-routed or cancelled on Friday morning.

The attack disrupted the transport system on the opening day of the 2024 Paris Olympics, with delays of up to two hours, if not outright cancellations, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers across the country.

At the Montparnasse train station in Paris, dozens of passengers are standing in the main hall with their eyes peeled on the information screens or their own phones and laptops.

Most don’t know what is happening and whether their train is cancelled or delayed, while some are desperately looking for alternatives.

“I’m getting a lot of contradictory information, I don’t understand what’s going on,” 59-year-old Stefan from the suburbs of Paris told Euronews.

He was supposed to take a train to the coastal town of Royan to meet his girlfriend. However, his train has been delayed and is likely to be cancelled.

Yet, Stefan was trying not to remain too frustrated, he said. “The love for my girlfriend is stronger than the delays. It’s just making me even more impatient to see her again.”

Lara from Paris was supposed to go to Bordeaux this morning at 7:30 am, yet her train got cancelled by 11 am. She ended up having to rent a car with her boyfriend to drive all the way there — but that wasn’t an easy task either.

“It was impossible to rent a car at Gare Montparnasse, they were literally completely booked up,” she told Euronews.

After finding a car online, Lara and her partner found it was gone by the time they got to it, and the next available vehicle was on the other side of the city.

Getting out of Paris was also horrible because of roadblocks for the Olympic Games opening ceremony, she added, compounding the frustration.

The railway staff have been equally affected by the attacks, and many are unsure what to do.

“I was supposed to work (on board a train) at 4 pm, but my train is going to be cancelled,” a TGV staff member told Euronews. “It’s absolute madness inside the train station. People are starting to get very impatient.”

Nearly 1 million passengers affected

Lines across the country have been affected, particularly those connecting cities to the capital: traffic between Paris and Lille in northern France has been suspended, as has traffic from Tours and Le Mans to the southwest of the capital.

Routes in the southeast have largely been unaffected, as an attack in the region has already been “foiled,” SNCF said. As such, trains to the likes of Lyon and the Alps region are running as normal.

“250,000 travellers were expected to travel today and 800,000 during this weekend,” SNCF told Euronews in an emailed statement Friday.

“SNCF is deploying its clients help service in major stations,” it said, adding that teams are working to carry out repairs and that customers will be informed about train traffic via SMS.

International travel to and from the UK beneath the English Channel and to neighbouring Belgium has also been disrupted by what SNCF called a series of coordinated overnight incidents.

Passengers at St Pancras station in London were warned to expect delays of around an hour to their Eurostar journeys. Announcements in the departure hall at the international terminus informed travellers heading to Paris that there was a problem with overhead power supplies.

The arson attacks might continue to affect routes throughout the weekend. Authorities continued investigating the incidents on Friday afternoon.

‘Acting against the games is acting against France’

French government ministers have been quick to deplore the suspected acts of vandalism, although they said there was no immediate sign of a direct link to the Olympics.

Patrice Vergriete, France’s Minister Delegate for Transport, said on X that several TGV high-speed trains will remain disrupted over the next few days.

“I strongly condemn these criminal acts which will jeopardise the holiday departures of many French people,” he said. “A big thank you to the SNCF teams who are working hard to restore traffic conditions as quickly as possible.”

Speaking to BFMTV, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Minister for Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, said she condemns what happened this morning in “the firmest manner”.

“It’s really appalling,” she said. “Acting against the games is acting against France, against your own side, against your country.”

The attacks have left many passengers disgruntled, with huge crowds left stranded in train stations across France.

Others have taken to social media to voice their disdain for the attackers and solidarity with SNCF’s repair teams.

“Good luck to all those affected and I hope that the perpetrators of the sabotage will be found,” wrote one user.