Traffic on France’s high-speed rail network will be back to normal by Monday, Transport Minister Patrice Vergritte said, after traffic chaos caused by vandals at signal stations and cables on Friday, the opening day of the Olympic Games.
French rail operator SNCF reiterated that a transport plan will be guaranteed for teams competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Attacks on the high-speed rail network early on Friday damaged infrastructure along lines linking Paris to cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west and Strasbourg in the east. Another attack on the Paris-Marseille line was foiled, the SNCF has said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Speaking to reporters at Paris’ Montparnasse railway station, Vergiete and SNCF chief Jean-Pierre Farandou said train services would remain disrupted throughout the weekend, although they are slowly returning to normal.
Vergarite said 100,000 people missed their trains on Friday and 150,000 faced delays but eventually reached their destinations.
“There will be disruptions tomorrow as well,” Vergriete told reporters. “There is no need to worry from Monday.”
Farandou confirmed this, saying that the investigation is ongoing and they have not yet found out who was behind the attack.
SNCF said in a statement that traffic on the Northern Axis would remain disrupted on Sunday, but that the situation on the Atlantic Axis would improve over the weekend.
“Traffic on the eastern high-speed line was restored to normal at 6:30 am (0530 GMT) today, while on the north, Brittany and south-west high-speed lines an average of 7 out of 10 trains will be delayed by 1 to 2 hours,” it said.
Two security sources said initial suspicions were on left-wing extremists or environmental activists based on the modus operandi, but added that no evidence had yet been found.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on Friday that it was too early to say who was behind the sabotage.
“What we know, what we saw, is that this operation was well-prepared, well-coordinated, nerve centres were targeted, which indicates a certain knowledge of this network about where to attack,” he said.
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