French plans to welcome the world to the 2024 Paris Olympics on Friday have been hit by a massive arson attack on the nation’s high-speed rail network.
Fires were started at key points just hours before the opening ceremony, bringing trains to a halt and leading to the cancellation of services taking tens of thousands of spectators to the capital.
Transport minister Patrice Vergriete said the “co-ordinated malicious acts” had targeted the TGV network, which spans the country.
It also meant some Eurostar services between London and Paris were cancelled and others delayed as trains were switched to conventional tracks rather than the 186mph high-speed network.
A spokesman for French rail firm SNCF said it had been the victim of “a massive arson attack to paralyse the TGV network” and predicted that the disruption would continue over the weekend. A criminal investigation was launched but there was no immediate theory about who was behind the attacks and no one claimed responsibility.
SNCF said a series of incidents overnight had affected travel to and from London via the Channel, to Belgium and across the west, north and east of France.
Three fires were reported by local media near the tracks of the French Atlantique, Nord and Est high-speed lines. French prime minister Gabriel Attal said “acts of sabotage” were carried out in a “prepared and co-ordinated manner on SNCF installations”. In a post on X, the premier said the impact on the rail network was “massive and serious” and said that French security forces were searching for the culprits.
Paris 2024, the organiser of this year’s Olympics, said they were “assessing the situation” but it was not thought that the attacks would delay Friday evening’s opening ceremony.
The event — which was expected to start at 6.30pm UK time — will break with a century of tradition after organisers moved it out of its usual stadium location and instead put the Seine at its heart.
Around 100 boats carrying more than 10,000 athletes, dignitaries and world leaders will sail the three and a half-mile route from the Austerlitz bridge to the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, past landmarks including Notre Dame cathedral.
Around 300,000 people are expected to line the river and nearby streets with 80 giant screens erected in the city and millions more watching on TV around the world to see the official opening and lighting of the Olympic cauldron.
The vast crowds will be watched over by around 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and some 2,000 private security staff, with snipers positioned on the city’s rooftops. The riverbed has been swept for bombs and drones will patrol the skies, with fighter jets on standby to intercept aircraft straying into Paris’s airspace, which will be closed.
Organisers have remained tight-lipped on their plans with French theatre director Thomas Jolly, who is overseeing the ceremony, saying that he wants “to show France in all its diversity”. However, some details have slipped out about the event, which will last almost four hours.
The ceremony is expected to include Lady Gaga and Celine Dion performing a duet of Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose.
Other famous faces seen in the city already include actresses Zendaya and Charlize Theron and Sir Mick Jagger, who were at a star-studded Prelude to the Olympics event last night
Hosted by Theron at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in the 6th arrondissement, it also saw appearances by tennis player Serena Williams, singer and designer Pharrell Williams and film director Steven Spielberg.
The Games organisers have pledged to make them the greenest yet — and halve the carbon emissions of previous Olympics — with stadium seats made from recycled plastic and medals with iron salvaged from girders on the Eiffel Tower during restoration work.
