How Olympic saboteurs brought chaos to the Games

It was the moment that France and the world had been waiting for – the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games down the River Seine, the first Summer Games outside a stadium.

But when the country woke up to the final Olympic countdown and the prospect of a spectacular show involving 7,500 athletes, 300,000 spectators, appearances by superstars and an audience of VIPs, the saboteurs had already thrown a huge spanner in the works.

In the early hours of Friday, reports emerged of a “massive” and “coordinated” action sabotage attack on the country’s national high-speed railwayswhich basically disabled most lines to and from the north, east and west of France.

Although authorities insisted that the opening ceremony itself would be uninterrupted, Gabriel Attalthe interim Prime Minister of France, said: “The consequences for the rail network are enormous and serious.”

“Our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts,” he added.

The French authorities had foreseen a large high-tech security regime to defend the Olympicswith Reaper drones in the skies and AI-powered cameras on the ground to keep an eye out for suspicious activity.

But Friday’s attack suggests they paid far less attention to key rail routes, which were sabotaged by old-fashioned arson rather than cyberattacks.

The saboteurs chose to avoid the heavily guarded French capital and instead hit rural targets in the middle of the night. While hundreds of armed police and soldiers patrolled the streets of Paris, several cables were apparently set on fire in the commune of Courtalain, about 150 kilometers southwest of the capital.

The local community’s social media page posted a photo of burned cables in a shallow ravine, with the protective paving stones discarded.

French state railway company SNCF says saboteurs vandalized or attempted to vandalize five signal boxes and electrical installations between 1am and 5:30am local time on Friday.

They attacked not only at Courtalain, but at Pagny-sur-Moselle, a village outside the eastern city of Metz, and at Croisilles, not far from the northern city of Arras.

The targeted sites are small but are located at crucial intersections of the high-speed network.

Another attempted attack, at a TGV junction southeast of Paris, in Vergigny, was thwarted by SNCF workers carrying out maintenance in the early hours of Friday.

Matthieu Chabanel, head of SNCF Réseau, which manages SNCF’s infrastructure, said the team first detected a major problem at 4am.

“Fifty cables of 10 wires each make 500 cables to reconnect connected to installations essential for safety, such as signaling,” he told Le Monde.

Patrice Vergriete, the French transport minister, said France had received no warning about the attacks but that “we are preparing for (others).”

“Today we are on alert, so obviously we have mobilized all security forces, as well as drones, so today we have greatly increased our vigilance,” he told TF1.

It remains unclear who is behind the devastating attacks that affected 250,000 passengers on Friday and are expected to hit 800,000 over the weekend.

Senior figures have suggested that the sabotage could have been carried out by far-left radicals or by Russia, whose athletes were prevented from taking part in the opening ceremony.

But who committed this crime? They knew what they were doing by choosing strategic “switch points” to cause maximum damage. “For a fire, you hit two destinations,” said Jean-Pierre Farandou, head of the SNCF.

“Part of France is under attack. The French are under attack,” he told BFMTV.

Friday was a big departure day for hundreds of thousands of French people who left Paris for holidays by train and car. Thousands more were expected to arrive in Paris to watch the opening ceremony.

The saboteurs “knew where to attack,” Attal said, adding that they had “knowledge of the network.”

“What we know, what we can confirm is that this operation was planned, coordinated, that key points were targeted, which shows a kind of knowledge of the [train] network,” he added.

One in four Eurostar trains was canceled on Friday and over the weekend, scuppering the Olympic plans of some British fans.

Toby Morris told The Telegraph that a friend gave him boxing tickets along with £250 train tickets to Paris as a gift.

“I thought about coming here to try my chances, but they said I definitely can’t catch another train today, so I won’t be able to go now,” he said.

Gérald Darmanin, French Interior Minister, told the press that the sabotage had “no direct consequences for the organization of the Olympic Games”.

However, Downing Street said Sir Keir Starmer had to change his travel plans as he was due to travel on the Eurostar to Paris but flew instead.

Sir Keir previously insisted the travel disruption would not “overshadow” the Olympic Games.

The SNCF urged passengers to postpone their journeys, stay away from train stations and wait for text message instructions, but by Friday afternoon, traffic was slowly resuming to western France – with one in three trains operating – while eastbound and northbound trains resumed with delays. .

Valérie Pécresse, head of the Paris regional council, said: “It is clear that this attack is not a coincidence. This attack is an attempt to destabilize France.”

Suspicions of Russian involvement arose this week when a Russian reality TV “bachelor” turned Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef was unmasked as an alleged spy plotting to sabotage the Olympics.

Jérôme Poirot, a terrorism expert at RMC-BFMTV, a French television and radio network, added: “We know that Russia and other countries want to interfere in the Olympic Games. There may be a plan in place to prevent the opening ceremony.”

Israel, on the other hand, blamed Iran. Israel Katz, Israel’s Foreign Minister, said: “The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was planned and executed under the influence of the axis of evil. and radical Islam in Iran.”

But Attal advised against jumping to conclusions.

“The investigation is beginning and I ask everyone to exercise caution. What we know, what we can confirm, is that this operation was prepared, coordinated, that key points were targeted, which shows a kind of knowledge of the network to know where to attack,” he said.

Emmanuel Macron declined to comment.

Asked whether the arson attacks were the work of Russia or a terrorist group, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, the French sports minister, responded: “Maybe,” before adding: “They could also be protesters – even French ones.”

It emerged on Friday that an incendiary device similar to those found at the sabotage sites on Friday had been detected in May on a high-speed line between Marseille and Aix-en-Provence. An investigation was launched, but no arrests were made.

Jean de Gliniasty, former French ambassador to Moscow, told LCI that the threat could have come from the far left.

“There is a tradition in France of black blocs: whenever there is a demonstration they destroy, break things,” he said. “In fact, France has been facing these problems for several years and we have not been able to solve them.”

In 2008, French anti-terrorism police arrested 10 members of a “violent anarchist movement” for sabotaging electrical cables on TGV high-speed rail lines. Serious delays were caused when power was cut by metal bars attached to overhead electrical cables on TGV lines around Paris.

However, in what was called a judicial “fiasco”, the “Tarnac ten” were later all acquitted.

Some French unions, including the powerful left-wing CGT, called strikes during the Games over working conditions, but these were withdrawn mainly due to concessions.

Paris prosecutors said an investigation had been launched into allegations of “damage to property that could harm the fundamental interests of the nation”, “damage and attempted damage by dangerous means in an organized gang”, “attacks on an automated processing system of data in an organized organization.” gang” and “criminal conspiracy”.