Two out of four trains carrying Olympic athletes to Paris on the western Atlantique high-speed line were stopped hours before the opening ceremony, the French railway operator SNCF said
French authorities are tonight frantically trying to find those behind the arson attacks that crippled train services, in a bid to prevent more chaos.
High-speed lines into Paris from across the country were targeted, just hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony began. The finger of blame was pointed at France’s ultra left groups, Russia due to its Games ban and Islamic terrorists. There were scenes of chaos at Paris Gare du Nord and the city’s Gare Montparnasse as thousands of passengers arrived to find trains cancelled or delayed.
President Emmanuel Macron ally Natalia Pouzyreff said: “This was planned, co-ordinated, a political act. It may have come out of the far left but could also be foreign interference.”
French PM Gabriel Attal added intelligence services have been mobilised to find the perpetrators of the “acts of sabotage”. Up to 500,000 Brits are expected in France for the Games. In London, many were also hit by the carnage. Maxine George, of Emsworth, Hampshire, said her train to France was delayed by two hours.
She added: “We are meant to travel back tomorrow lunchtime on Eurostar if it is working.” Hadassa Goncalves, from Sau Paulo in Brazil was at St Pancras. She said: “This is bad for us.
“We wanted to see the opening ceremony.” Team GB artistic swimmers Izzy Thorpe, 22, and Kate Shortman, 23, feared they would be caught up.
They had boarded their Eurostar from London when news of the attacks emerged. But they arrived on time to join 39 British athletes along the Seine. Rowing legend Sir Steve Redgrave, 62, was guest of honour at a reception for fans last night in Paris after making it safely to the city.
There were three arson attacks on signalling cables between 1am and 5.30am, affecting 800,000 passengers. One was at Courtalain, south of Paris, a second at Croisilles to the north and Pagny-sur-Moselle, east of the capital.
French rail chiefs said the targets were chosen to have “the most serious impact”. Security in Paris was said to be strong, but that may have led to the attacks on “softer” targets.
No group had last night claimed responsibility for the attacks. But security expert Neil Fergus, who has worked on 11 summer and winter Olympics, said there is no shortage of potential saboteurs. He added: “There is so much conflict, in Gaza, in the Ukraine. A number of attacks in France have emanated from Russian cyber groups.”
Paris is at the centre of the biggest security operation in peacetime, with around 75,000 police officers, soldiers and security on the streets. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said it had “full confidence” in French officials to deal with the rail attacks.