Paris: France has suspended high-speed rail services across much of the country in what has been described as “coordinated sabotage” attacks just hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
The coordinated arson attacks on Thursday night will alarm organisers of the Paris Games as they prepare to host hundreds of thousands of spectators in the capital for the official start of the event, where thousands of athletes are set to sail through the heart of the city in boats.
Travellers face delays at the Gare de Montparnasse station in Paris.Credit: AP
A flotilla will carry more than 10,000 athletes along the River Seine in a route dotted with the city’s major landmarks, in front of 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs and celebrities.
French officials and security agencies have previously warned that Russia or political activists could seek to sabotage the Games, and have also been bracing for terror attacks.
SNCF, the train operator, said that the attacks were designed to “paralyse” the network and that there would be widespread disruption all weekend. “This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network,” SNCF told the news agency Agence France-Presse.
Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects the United Kingdom with France, has been forced to cancel and divert trains due to the “co-ordinated acts of malice,” on French lines.
The company said that 800,000 customers had been affected on services across the west, north and east of France. SNCF also said one of the acts was “foiled.”
Central Paris is already in a state of virtual lockdown ahead of the opening ceremony, with passes required to cross police cordons anywhere within a few hundred yards of the Seine and Olympic sites.
Discussion about this post