After high-speed train lines, it’s now the turn of telecommunications to be sabotaged, just a few days into the Paris Olympics. Suspicions are growing that far-left extremists are responsible for the massive deterioration in the quality of public transport.
Overnight sabotage affected the fibre optic networks of several telephone operators throughout France on the night of Sunday July 28th and the following day. Six departments were affected; Paris, however, was not. The outages affected French operators Free and SFR, as well as foreign operators using French infrastructure, such as Vodafone and British Telecom.
Users did not experience any major disruption to their networks, as traffic is automatically rerouted when cables are cut. While there has been no claim of responsibility for the sabotage so far, it is clearly vandalism and not accidental damage. “Large sections of cable have been cut. You have to use an axe or an angle grinder,” explained an SFR technician.
An investigation has been opened into “damage to property likely to undermine the fundamental interests of the nation, organised gang attacks on an automated data processing system and criminal conspiracy.”
These acts of sabotage on the French telecommunications network followed a large-scale operation targeting the high-speed lines in the north, west, and east of France.
Those responsible for these acts have not yet been identified, but the responsibility of far-left extremists—promptly cited by the press in the hours following the attack on Friday, July 26th—seems likely to be confirmed.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told France 2 television that investigators had identified a number of profiles who could have carried out the sabotage against the TGV lines and said that this was “the traditional type of action of the ultra-left.”
On Monday, a far-left activist was arrested at an SNCF site in Normandy. His direct responsibility for Friday’s attacks has not yet been clearly established by the investigation, but police have found clues consistent with far-left tactics. Cutting pliers, a set of universal keys, and access keys to SNCF technical premises were found in his vehicle.
At the same time, an email claiming responsibility, sent using a secure domain name used by the far Left, reached the French and international media. The e-mail is currently being analysed by the police in an attempt to establish whether there is indeed a link between the authors of the e-mails and the sabotage of the rail network in recent days.
On Monday, July 29th, rail traffic returned to normal throughout France, and the Olympic sports events continued despite these attempts to destabilise the communication networks.
