Tinaye Agere
VANDALS targeted France’s high-speed train network with a series of coordinated actions that brought major disruption to some of the country’s busiest rail lines ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday.
The state-owned railway operator said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in west and Strasbourg in the east.
It urged all travellers to postpone their journeys.
Repairs were underway but traffic would be severely disrupted until at least the end of the weekend.
Trains were being sent back to their points of departure.
“Last night, the SNCF was victim of several acts of vandalism on the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines,” reads a statement from the railway operator.
“Fires were deliberately set to damage our installations.
The coordinated strikes on the rail network will feed into a sense of apprehension ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony in the heart of Paris later on Friday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no indication of whether the action was politically related. – WIRES
Bongani Ndlovu