Alleged saboteurs stormed France’s TGV high-speed train network in a planned action that caused chaos on the country’s busiest rail lines ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony scheduled to hold on Friday.
This incident is coming despite a massive security deployment involving tens of thousands of troops and police officials to safeguard the people, both citizens and foreigners against any threat to the global sporting extravaganza.
TGV, a state-owned railway operator had meanwhile, reported that the arsonists had damaged signal boxes along the lines connecting Paris with other cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in west and Strasbourg in the east.
Fortunately, another attack on the Paris-Marseille line was thwarted.
This attack left hundreds of thousands of people stranded.
Meanwhile, the SNCF had encouraged all travellers to delay their journeys even as repairs were ongoing as traffic would be extremely delayed until Sunday at least. Trains have also been sent back to their points of departure.
At the time of filing this report, no groups or individual(s) have claimed responsibility for the attacks. There has also been no indication of the attack being politically motivated.
The train attacks targeted signaling installations on the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines with the fires being set off through the use of explosive devices.
The French government will be rolling out an extraordinary peacetime security operation to secure the event, with over 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents already deployed.
In addition, snipers will be on rooftops and drones will keep watch from above.
What They’re Saying
“Everything leads us to believe that these were criminal acts,” Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete had informed reporters at the Gare du Nord.
