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France's high-speed rail network was hit on Friday with widespread and "criminal" acts of vandalism, including arson attacks, paralysing travel to Paris from across the rest of France and Europe only hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
French officials condemned the attacks as "criminal actions", though they said there was no sign of a direct link to the Games, and prosecutors in Paris opened a national investigation saying the crimes could carry sentences of 15 to 20 years.
It's estimated 250,000 travellers will be affected by what French national rail company SNCF called a series of coordinated overnight incidents.
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They said it was a "massive attack aimed at paralysing the high-speed line network".
Outgoing French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the sabotage had "a clear objective: blocking the high speed train network".
He said the vandals strategically targeted the main routes from the north, east and west towards Paris.
Attal said there would be "massive consequences", with "hundreds of thousands" of people stuck while trying to visit Paris, either for the Games or vacations.
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Earlier, Attal wrote on social media platform X that France's intelligence services had been mobilised to find the perpetrators.
He characterised the incident as "acts of sabotage", which were "prepared and coordinated".
There were no known reports of injuries.
As Paris authorities geared up for a spectacular opening ceremony on and along the Seine River, three fires were reported near the tracks on the high-speed lines of Atlantique, Nord and Est.
Among the hundreds of thousands of impacted travellers were two German athletes in showjumping who were on a train to Paris to take part in the opening ceremony but had to turn back in Belgium because of the closures, and will now miss the ceremony, German news agency dpa reported.
"There was no longer a chance of making it on time," rider Philipp Weishaupt, who was travelling with teammate Christian Kukuk, told dpa.
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete described people fleeing from the scene of fires and the discovery of incendiary devices.
"Everything indicates that these are criminal fires," he said.
The incidents paralysed several high-speed lines linking Paris to the rest of France and to neighbouring countries, Vergriete said, speaking on BFMTV.
SNCF said that areas affecting rail track intersections were targeted to double the impact.
"For one fire, two destinations were hit," the company's CEO, Jean-Pierre Farandou.
It was "a premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack" that indicates "a desire to seriously harm" the French people, Farandou said.
Farandou told journalists on Friday that cables – which are there to ensure the security of train drivers – were set on fire and taken apart but that authorities "don't know who is behind it".
The French Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castera said the disruption to the train lines are "a sort of co-ordinated sabotage".
Oudéa-Castera condemned the attacks in the "strongest possible terms," and said it is "truly appalling".
"Playing against the Games is playing against France, against your own camp, against your country," she told BFMTV.
"We will assess the impacts on travellers, athletes, and ensure the proper transport of all delegations to the competition sites," she said.
Also Friday, the French airport of Basel-Mulhouse on the border with Germany and Switzerland was evacuated in the morning and remained temporarily closed "for safety reasons," the airport said.
It wasn't clear whether there was a connection to the rail attacks.
'Hell of a way to start the Olympics'
The attack occurred against a backdrop of global tensions and heightened security measures as the city prepared for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Many travellers were planning to converge on the capital for the opening ceremony, and many vacationers were also in transit.
French authorities have foiled several plots to disrupt the Olympics, including arresting a Russian man on suspicion of planning to destabilise the games.
The Paris police prefecture "concentrated its personnel in Parisian train stations" after the "massive attack" that paralysed the TGV high-speed network, Laurent Nuñez, the Paris police chief, told France Info television.
The disruptions hit Paris' Montparnasse station particular hard.
Valerie Pecresse, president of the regional council of the greater Paris region, speaking from Montparnasse station, said on Friday that all elements "point towards this being a deliberate act".
"250,000 travellers will be affected today on all these lines," he added.
In the station's crowded hall, Maiwenn Labbé-Sorin said she spent hours stranded on a train before it doubled back to Paris.
"We stayed two hours without water, without toilets, without electricity," she said.
"Then we could go out on the track for a bit and then the train returned. Now I'm not sure what's going to happen."
Many passengers at the Gare du Nord, one of Europe's busiest train stations, were looking for answers and solutions on Friday morning. All eyes were on the central message boards as most services to northern France, Belgium and the United Kingdom were delayed.
"It's a hell of a way to start the Olympics," said Sarah Moseley, 42, as she learned that her train to London was an hour late.
"They should have more information for tourists, especially if it's a malicious attack," said Corey Grainger, a 37-year-old Australian sales manager on his way to London, as he rested on his two suitcases in the middle of the station.
Disruptions in France and UK expected all weekend
Disruptions were expected throughout the weekend as work crews oversee repairs.
The SNCF group president said they were looking to mobilise hundreds of extra personnel to fix the network as quickly as possible.
They advised "all passengers to postpone their journey and not to go to the station", specifying in a press release that all tickets were exchangeable and refundable.
The Rémi Train Centre Val de Loire said travel on its railway lines would be disrupted until at least Monday, with a fire near the tracks in Courtalain, northern France.
Eurostar, the high-speed train service that connects the UK with France, announced it was cancelling one in four trains this weekend due to the "co-ordinated acts of malice".
It encouraged customers to postpone their trip if possible.
Security bolstered
The troubles began just hours before the Olympic torch relay was to conclude and the Opening Ceremony begin, with more than 320,000 spectators expected to attend along the River Seine.
During the ceremony it's expected 7000 Olympic athletes will sail down the Seine past iconic Parisian monuments such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre Museum, and the Musee d'Orsay.
Security in Paris had already been bolstered in recent weeks.
France plans to deploy about 35,000 police each day during the Games, peaking at 45,000 for the Opening Ceremony, a spokesperson at the French interior ministry previously said.
In addition, 10,000 soldiers will be deployed in the Paris region – an effort supported by 1800 police officers from around the world.
Nicolas Nordman, deputy Paris mayor in charge of security, recently told CNN that authorities had been working for months to try to anticipate what might happen and were confident the ceremony would be safe.
The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the attack and detailed four separate charges, relating to the damage of state property and taking part in organised crime.
Some of the crimes listed are punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment and a fine of €300,000 ($500,000).
– With Associated Press, CNN
