Saboteurs who brought France’s high-speed train lines to a standstill before the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris are being blamed for a series of similar attacks on targets including telecommunications networks.
Authorities reported damage to fiber-optic networks in six regions of the country, although no major disruption to phone or internet services was reported.
After Friday’s attacks on the TGV network, there was speculation that Russian security services could be behind the coordinated action as payback for President Emmanuel Macron’s military support for Ukraine.
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But the arrest on Sunday of what police called an “ultra-left activist” apparently trying to gain access to a network control room belonging to the SNCF train company adds to growing evidence that it is homegrown anti-capitalist protesters who are doing their best to undermine the $9 billion Olympic project.
A police source told AFP that the man detained at Oissel in the northern province of Normandy had keys to SNCF technical premises and a set of universal passkeys. He was also carrying tools and a copy of an anti-capitalist resistance handbook.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said Monday that more than 50 people had been arrested for planning to disrupt the Olympics and said far-left groups were behind the attacks.
Forty-five of those are thought to be the environmental group Extinction Rebellion who had been planning to disrupt early Olympic events—and are not necessarily being blamed for the rail and telecoms sabotage.
Referring to the sabotage attacks, Darmanin told the France 2 TV channel that it was to early to say who was responsible. “This is the traditional mode of action of the far left,” he said, but added: “We must be careful. The question is whether they were manipulated or is it for their own benefit. There are people who can approach this movement.”
Among the targets was a telecoms relay tower near the southwestern city of Toulouse that was set on fire in the first wave of attacks early on Friday. Nearby was found a spray-painted tag “No: J.O.”—apparently referring to a a hard-left anarchist group that is opposed to the Jeux Olympiques, or Olympic Games.
Friday's attacks disrupted high-speed TGV services from Paris to the rest of the country, as well as Eurostar services to London through the Channel Tunnel. But all services were back to normal by Monday after emergency engineering repairs.
