Trains delayed, thousands left stranded after saboteurs attack railways in France

The Star

Three high-speed train routes in France were vandalised overnight and targeted by saboteurs, the state-owned railway operator on Friday (July 26), causing massive disruption to traffic on the day the Olympic Games officially get underway.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00Saboteurs attacked France's TGV high-speed train network in coordinated actions ahead

00:08of the Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony on Friday.

00:12The train operator, SNCF, said the vandals targeted the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern

00:17lines overnight, causing damages to its facilities and massive disruption to the services.

00:24They said arsonists set their facilities on fire, damaging signal boxes along the lines

00:29connecting Paris with major cities.

00:32They urged travellers to refrain from using their services until the operations returned

00:37to normalcy.

00:38We came through here and then we were waiting on our train and we saw at the billboard that

00:46there is a delay of 30 minutes, now it's 40 minutes, so it's getting longer and longer.

00:53I was at first a little bit scared to come here but we already booked it so we thought

01:00yeah if something happens there are enough police people so it will be okay, we thought.

01:23It's just painful in fact, it happens a bit in France quite often, so it's a shame for

01:43today because it's the G.O.

01:47Repairs were being carried out on the damaged lines.

01:56The high-speed train service is expected to be disrupted at least until the weekend.

02:01Train disruptions are a common issue in France, usually due to workers' strikes.

Category

Transcript

Recommended