The French National Railway Company (SNCF) has denounced this Friday a “massive attack” against its high-speed train network, a situation that affects three of the four lines in Paris, with approximately 800,000 passengers affected in the coming days, and which takes place hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

The president of the Paris region, Valérie Pécresse, denounced “an attempt to destabilise France” on a key day for the country. The attacks consisted of coordinated fires in cable ducts signalling and communications power supply. The company has specified that the network “was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts” affecting three lines and has stated that “fires were started intentionally to damage the facilities.”

“Following this massive attack aimed at paralysing the high-speed line network, a large number of trains were diverted or cancelled,” the company said on its account on the social network X, where it asked travellers to be able to postpone your trip that “they should not go to the stations.”

For his part, the French Minister of Transport, Patrice Vergriete, has denounced these actions and has announced that they “will seriously disrupt traffic over the weekend as well.” “I strongly condemn these criminal actions which aim to affect the holiday opportunities of many French people,” he said. Vergriete also expressed his “great gratitude” to the SNCF teams, who “are already working to restore traffic conditions as quickly as possible” following these “coordinated” attacks on the network.

For his part, the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, said this Friday in statements given to the RTL radio station that “there are More than 50,000 people assigned to protect to the French” in the framework of the important sporting event and added that the security forces have dismantled “four projects of violent action” over the past few weeks.

The affected lines, with delays and suspensions, are those of the northern axis (which also includes the TGV to London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Germany), the western axis (Brittany, Bordeaux) and the eastern axis (Strasbourg, Frankfurt). The Nord, Este and Montparnasse stations have been particularly affected, with thousands of passengers stuck since morning.

The company has stressed that the fourth line has not been affected after an attack has been “dismantled” against it. “Our teams are on site to carry out the diagnosis and begin repairs,” he said.

However, he has acknowledged that traffic on the Atlantic, North and East lines “is severely affected.” “Some trains have turned around, while others have A large number of them have been cancelled“, he concluded, without there being any claim of authorship of these actions for now.