French railway company SNCF has warned that the disruption caused by Friday’s sabotage against the country’s rail network could last until the end of the weekend and affect hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Coordinated arson attacks on three lines of the high-speed TGV network caused chaos for travelers on Friday, hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. A fourth attack was foiled by railway workers.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal described the attacks as “acts of sabotage”.
Around a quarter of international Eurostar trains were also cancelled, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer among those affected.
In a statement released late on Friday, SNCF said traffic “would improve” on the affected lines on Saturday, thanks to the work of thousands of rail workers.
It said:
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On the eastern line, trains would run normally from 06:00 (05:00 BST) on Saturday
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On the Northern line, 80% of trains would be running, with delays of 1 to 2 hours
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On the southwest line, 60% of trains would be running, with delays of 1 to 2 hours
The company added that customers whose trains are delayed or canceled will be contacted via email or text message.
Eurostar said it expects around a fifth of services over the weekend to be cancelled, while all trains will face delays of around 1.5 hours. Eurostar services use the Northern high-speed line.
The SNCF said surveillance of the railway network had been reinforced “on land and in the air”, using 1,000 workers and 50 drones.
Junior Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said around 250,000 people were affected on Friday, while up to 800,000 could face delays and cancellations by Monday.
He added that disrupting holiday travel, rather than Friday’s Olympic Games opening ceremony, was the saboteurs’ most likely objective.
“There’s not necessarily a connection” to the Olympics, he said in an interview.
The last weekend in July is traditionally a busy day for holiday travel.
No group has yet claimed to be behind the attacks. A source linked to the investigation told the AFP news agency that the operation was “well prepared” and organized by “a unique structure”.
Attal said security forces were looking for those responsible.
At around 4 a.m. on Friday, saboteurs cut and set fire to specialized fiber optic cables essential to the safe operation of the rail network, government officials said.
One site was at Courtalain, 150 km (93 mi) southwest of Paris. A photo posted online allegedly showed burned cables in a shallow ravine with their SNCF protective stones discarded.
The SNCF spoke of a “massive, large-scale attack intended to paralyze” its services, not just in Courtalain, but in Pagny-sur-Moselle, a village outside the city of Metz and Croisilles in the east, not far from the city of Arras, in the north. .
Another attempted attack in Vergigny, southeast of Paris, was thwarted by SNCF workers carrying out maintenance at the site in the early hours of Friday.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into attacks on the “fundamental interests of the nation”.
