France's rail operator repairs damage from suspected arson attack

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - PARIS — France's national rail operator, SNCF, announced that it has completed repairs to infrastructure damaged in a suspected coordinated arson attack on Friday.

Most trains were running as planned on Sunday, and full service is expected to resume on Monday.

Police are still searching for the perpetrators behind the attack, which French ministers and officials have described as "sabotage" aimed at paralyzing high-speed TGV lines running to and from Paris.

The disruption affected hundreds of thousands of people just hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in the capital.

SNCF reported that staff have been working around the clock to manually repair fiber optic cables targeted on the North, Brittany, and South-West lines. Rail workers also foiled an attempt to destroy safety equipment on a fourth line.

On Sunday, the rail company stated that the main western line from Paris was operating almost normally, while three out of four TGV trains were running on the northern line from Lille without expected delays.

SNCF estimated that around 250,000 passengers were affected on Friday, while junior transport minister Patrice Vergriete suggested that up to 800,000 people could be impacted over three days.

Eurostar, which runs international services from London to Paris and uses a high-speed line in France, was also affected. The company stated that one in four of its trains would not run over the weekend.

Among those caught up in the disruption on Friday was UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had planned to travel to the Games' opening ceremony by train but was forced to fly instead. He told the BBC, "I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t frustrating because it was, and for very many people it made travel so much harder."

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened a criminal investigation into the incident, which is being overseen by its organized crime office. — Agencies