France warned on Friday night that the Paris Olympic Games were threatened with further chaos after its high-speed rail network was crippled by sabotage attacks suspected to have been carried out by hard-Left agitators.
Suspicion also fell on Russia after critical cables sustained “massive” damage in “co-ordinated” pre-dawn assaults on three locations on Friday, hours before the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony.
It came after months of warnings about Kremlin plots to sabotage the Games, and the rising threat from radical Leftist groups angered by Emmanuel Macron’s snap election.
Patrice Vergriete, the French transport minister, said after the sabotage that France was “preparing” for more attacks on its networks.
He said: “Today we are on alert, so obviously we have mobilised all security forces, as well as drones, so today we have greatly increased our vigilance.”
One French intelligence source told the AFP news agency that the hard-Left was believed to be behind the attacks. US media also said local officials were investigating anarchists or extreme Leftist groups, although they cautioned that the “initial assessment” was only preliminary.
There was no official comment from the French authorities.
Gerald Darmanin, the French interior minister, revealed that four more attack plans targeting the Olympics had been foiled in the past few weeks by his services. He added that the threat of terrorism remained “high”.
Friday’s attacks threatened to overshadow the opening ceremony held on the River Seine last night as heavy rain fell on the 7,500 athletes, 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs.
The chaos on the railways was set to affect some 800,000 passengers throughout this weekend, including a quarter of a million on Friday, authorities said.
Two trains carrying athletes were also affected on Friday, with some at risk of missing the opening ceremony and the start of their sports.
Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the French sports minister, said that the impact on the transportation of the delegations and “the athletes this weekend” was being assessed.
Sir Keir Starmer was also caught up in the chaos. He had to change his travel plans, with a Downing Street spokesman saying that the Prime Minister was meant to travel on the Eurostar to Paris but flew to France instead because of the disruption.
Meanwhile, thousands of British travellers were stranded in St Pancras station in London after one in four Eurostar trains were cancelled as a result of the sabotage in France.
Some travellers told The Telegraph that they had tickets to the opening ceremony, while others were unable to travel to the Games where they were supposed to be volunteering.
‘This is an attempt to destabilise France’
Paris prosecutors said an investigation had been launched into charges of “damaging property likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation”, among others.
Valérie Pécresse, the Paris regional council head, said: “Clearly this attack is not a coincidence. This attack is an attempt to destabilise France.”
Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, said saboteurs “knew where to hit”, had “knowledge of the network” and had hit “key points”.
Some officials pointed the finger at a Russian plot. The attacks followed weeks of warnings from French government officials that Russia might try to sabotage the Games.
This week, a Russian reality TV “bachelor” turned Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef was unmasked as an alleged spy plotting to sabotage the Paris Olympics. Kirill Gryaznov, 40, arrested on Sunday in Paris, has been linked to Russia’s FSB security service.
In a phone call, intercepted by French officers, he was recorded saying: “The French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before.”
He was charged with sharing “intelligence with a foreign power with a view to provoking hostilities in France”.
Israel said that Iran was responsible, with Israel Katz, its foreign minister, writing that the attack was “planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil and radical Islam”.
Source Agencies
