The incident comes as Paris and nearby locales host events for the 2024 Paris Olympics. The wider impact of the act of sabotage is uncertain, as is whether this incident has affected any specific Olympic events.
France’s second-biggest telecommunications company stated it had made repairs in numerous areas already or workarounds maintained the scale of the impact low. A few other telecom providers also got things back in operation later that day.
According to Paris prosecutors, a national investigation has been opened to look into the attacks and the damage they have done to France’s telecommunications systems.
The prosecutors said the crimes they are investigating include damaging property with an intent to harm essential national interests and attacking data processing systems by an organized group, which bring a 10- to 15-year prison sentence.
Left-wing arson attacks disabled train networks around France
“Damages committed in several departments last night affected our telecommunications operators. They have localized consequences on access to fiber, fixed telephony and mobile telephony,” Ferrari said. “I condemn in the strongest terms these cowardly and irresponsible acts. Thank you to the teams mobilized this morning to carry out repairs and restore damaged sites to service.”
Reports indicate that the attacks were spread out through no less than six of France’s administrative departments, including the region around the major Mediterranean city of Marseille, which is hosting several Olympic events, including soccer and sailing competitions.
The attacks also affected the long-distance train network TGV, causing train lines to temporarily go under. Hundreds of railway employees have worked back-to-back shifts to get France’s high-speed rail lines out of Paris operating again, and the operator SNCF said they had accomplished this by early Monday morning.
The company lauded the “exceptional mobilization” of their staff who “have worked tirelessly since Friday morning” to complete the repairs by Monday while the government charged ultra-left anarchists for the damage.
A national investigation also is underway into last week’s train sabotage, which interrupted travel for almost a million passengers in France along with people in London and other neighboring countries. Train traffic had mostly continued by Monday.
Meanwhile, reports from French media said that an extreme-left activist was arrested at a rail facility on Sunday, July 28, in the Seine-Maritime region of western France.
However, the Paris prosecutor’s office said it was unrelated to what occurred Friday and that no one has been apprehended up to now in the national investigation into the arson attacks.
The “ultra-left militant” was arrested in northwest France after being discovered behaving suspiciously near a railway site. Officers who checked the man’s car found keys to technical premises, pliers, a variety of universal keys and literature “linked to the ultra-left.”
French media said the 28-year-old suspect is being interrogated by police in the city of Rouen.
Watch the video below about the arson attacks targeting French train lines ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
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