French arson attacks disrupt train traffic across Europe

Xinhua, Philippine News Agency

According to the SNCF, 800,000 passengers were affected by the attacks, with some trains diverted and a large number of trains canceled. (File Photo: Barthelemy de Mazenod/Unsplash)

LONDON – Arson attacks on French railways have caused widespread delays and cancellations of rail services across Europe on Friday, the day of the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Paris.

TGV high-speed train traffic on France’s Atlantic, northern and eastern routes was severely disrupted due to arson attacks aimed at damaging installations, the French national rail company SNCF announced on X Friday morning.

According to the SNCF, 800,000 passengers were affected by the attacks, with some trains diverted and a large number of trains canceled.

International travel through the English Channel and neighboring Belgium has also been disrupted.

Eurostar canceled 25 percent of its scheduled services, and trains from the Netherlands to Paris were experiencing delays of an additional one and a half hours, according to the Dutch railway operator NS.

Friday’s disruption also caused delays and cancellations of Eurostar trains departing from London St. Pancras station to Paris Gare du Nord station, with around three trains canceled and another eight delayed as of 4 p.m. London time on Friday.

The train cancellations also caused British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to change his travel plans to France for the Olympics opening ceremony, taking a flight instead of a train to Paris for the ceremony, according to Downing Street.

Despite the attacks, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games on Friday evening proceeded as the incidents had no impact on the transport network in the Paris region, confirmed Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, quoted by French media BFMTV.

“All the evidence indicates that these acts were deliberate,” the outgoing minister for transport, Patrice Vergriete, told BFMTV on Friday.

The outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said on X: “Our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts.”

One-third of the trains returned to operational by Friday afternoon. (Xinhua)