French rail company SNCF says at least 250,000 passengers are expected to be impacted by what the country’s Prime Minister Gabriel Attal described as “acts of sabotage” on Friday.
A series of fires caused the disruptions early in the morning local time, hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
Several high-speed TGV lines have been hit to the west, north and east of the capital and Eurostar has also warned customers of longer journey times and cancellations.
Nobody has claimed responsibility and Mr Attal said that security forces were searching for those responsible. The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating.
“Early this morning, acts of sabotage were carried out in a prepared and coordinated manner on SNCF installations,” Mr Attal wrote on social media.
SNCF earlier described the fires as a “massive attack” involving “malicious acts”. It said it was fixing the cables damaged in the attacks manually “one by one”.
As many as 800,000 people could be affected over the weekend due to the disruption, the rail company said.
Its head, Christophe Fanichet, said the disruption would be minimized as things improved, and that affected travelers would be reimbursed,
Mr Fanichet has urged people not to come to the stations unless they have received communications that their trains are running.
Transport minister Patrice Vergriete said all the information “points to the fact that these were arson attacks”.
He said the “criminal acts” happened simultaneously and “vans were found from which people had fled, particularly in the south-east”. Flammable material was found on site.
Three main routes on the TGV line connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west, and Strasbourg in the east were attacked.
The authorities said they foiled a fourth attack, to the south on the Paris-Marseille line.
Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra described the attacks as “downright appalling”.
She added that the immediate impact on the public and Olympic athletes was currently being assessed, as well as the potential effect on transporting teams to competition sites over the weekend.
More than 300,000 spectators are expected in the heart of Paris on Friday for an opening ceremony that will see thousands of Olympic athletes sailing down the River Seine.
Paris 2024, the organiser of this year’s Olympic Games, say they are “assessing the situation” and working closely with SNCF.
The railway company’s chief-executive, Jean-Pierre Farrandou, said there was severe disruption and the impact on customers would be very significant.
Eurostar and other high-speed services have been diverted onto different lines, causing a knock-on effect to other services.
Eurostar says it will be cancelling one in four of its services on Friday and also on Saturday and Sunday, adding it expects the disruption to last until Monday morning.
Megan Murphy, 50, has travelled by Eurostar from London and arrived at Gare du Nord station in Paris early on Friday afternoon.
Germany’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn has also warned of disruptions to its long-distance rail network and asked passengers to check their connection before travelling.
SNCF said its teams were already on site in an attempt to investigate damage and begin repairs. It warned that the situation was likely to last throughout the weekend and potentially beyond.
Mr Farrandou said thousands of rail workers were being deployed across the network.
“This was supposed to be a holiday,” he told French TV.
“It’s the big day for going on summer holiday, and it’s also of course the opening of the Olympics with lots of French people coming to Paris to enjoy the Games and all of that’s ruined.”
The attack comes as a massive security operation is in place in the French capital, involving tens of thousands of troops and police to guard against threats to the global sporting event.
French authorities said intelligence services would find and punish those behind the “criminal acts”.
One security source suggested in French media that the arson attack bore all the hallmarks of the extreme left.
The suspected sabotage comes after a Russian man was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of involvement in a “destabilization” plot targeting the Games.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he was suspected of spying on behalf of Russia’s intelligence services.
No Russian link has been made by French authorities to the sabotage on the rail networks.
Russia is banned from the Olympics, although a number of the country’s athletes are competing as neutrals.
By BBC News
