Train sabotage across France on the opening day of the Paris 2024 Olympics

The national railway company Sncf reports attacks on railway lines throughout the country, causing inconvenience for 800 thousand travellers.

A few hours before the opening ceremony of Paris 2024 Olympics, the French national railway company Sncf was the victim of “a massive attack” aimed at cripple its high-speed train network, the famous Tgv.“Arson has damaged our facilities,” the rail group said in a press release.Various malicious acts involved three out of four axes of the French railway network:the Atlantic one, the North one and the East one.However, the south-east line is not affected.

“We are diverting some trains onto conventional lines but we will have to eliminate a large number of them,” added the SNCF.This situation is expected to last at least through the weekend while repairs are carried out.Sncf Réseau teams are already on site to carry out the diagnosis and start repairs. The Team, the main French sports newspaper, underlines that these acts of vandalism come just as many travelers were expected today in the capital for the official inauguration of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.Travelers have now been advised to postpone their journey as much as possible and not to go to the station.

Almost 800 thousand travelers affected 

According to the Sncf, almost 800 thousand travellers will be affected by the inconvenience caused by the attack on the Tgv network, which resulted in a series of fires set to structures, all outside the city of Paris where the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is scheduled for this evening at 7.30pm:although the situation has been improving as the hours have passed, with one in three regular trains in the Montparnasse and Bordeaux stations, which were the most affected, only 25 percent of the Eurostar trains connecting Paris and London, for example, will travel during the weekend.

According to Israel, Iran and radical Islam are to blame

“I strongly condemn these criminal actions which will compromise the holiday departures of many French people,” Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete wrote in X.The Prime Minister Gabriel Attal he explained that “our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts.”

But comments also came from abroad:according to the Minister of the Interior of Germany, Nancy Faeser, what happened in France demonstrates “how serious the current threats are in Europe when strong security measures are important to protect the Olympic Games”.Words that are not random, but which refer to the strengthening of controls between France and Germany desired by the German Ministry of the Interior on the occasion of the Olympics.While investigations into those responsible have only just begun, the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz however, it seems to have already found the culprit:Iran.“The sabotage was planned and executed under the axis of evil of Iran and radical Islam,” Katz said.