France is unarguably one of the most important nation in Europe, and currently hosting the largest Sports Extravaganza, known as Olympics. However, it seems France has been hit by alleged sabotage attempts by the far left groups.
Nationwide Railway Network attacks
High-speed trains around France were hit by several “malicious acts” on July 26 that heavily disrupted traffic on the day of the high-risk opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, according to the national rail company SNCF.
Travel to and from London beneath the English Channel, to neighboring Belgium, and across the west, north and east of France were affected by what SNCF called a series of coordinated overnight incidents.
Government officials denounced the incidents hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which are happening around France, though there was no immediate sign of a link to the Games.
National police said authorities are investigating what happened. French media reported a big fire on a busy western route.
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said in a post on X that he “firmly condemns these criminal incidents,” and that SNCF is working to restore traffic.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez, speaking on France Info radio, said he would send police reinforcement to overcrowded train stations in relation to the SNCF incidents.
France suspects far-left groups were behind rail sabotage, minister says. PARIS, July 29 (Reuters) – France suspects members of far-left groups were behind the sabotage of the high-speed rail network last week just as the Olympic Games were about to begin, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday.
Electricity Outage in France
Several reports claim Paris has been hit by major power outage amid Olympics 2024 events. However, reports are yet to be confirmed.
Several users took to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday posted videos and pictures of the city suggesting Paris had been left in darkness after a supposed ‘blackout’.
The rumored outage coincides with the 2024 Olympics, which have had a tumultuous beginning. Travel chaos ensued as trains were halted due to a ‘massive arson attack.’ Additionally, heavy showers have caused significant disruptions, leading to the postponement of several sporting events. The opening ceremony on Friday night also faced substantial criticism.
Nationwide Internet Outage
Meanwhile, in a new incident, fiberoptic networks of several telecommunications operators were “sabotaged” in six areas of France but Paris was not affected, police said Monday. CBS News’ Elaine Cobbe said internet connections were affected, including some VOIP phone services, rather than cellular services.
The French public prosecutor announced later Monday that an investigation was opened into several attacks on telecommunications installations and that the probe would be be run jointly by counterterrorism investigators and the Gendarmerie national police force.
The communiqué from the prosecutor’s office didn’t say why counterterror authorities were involved, but Cobbe said it was possible the incidents involved a data breach, which could be enough to trigger their inclusion in the investigation as they often probe suspected cyberattacks.
Marina Ferrari, France’s junior minister for digital affairs, said on X that in the early hours of Monday morning, multiple locations around France were affected by several “damages” that impacted telecommunications providers and have resulted in “localized consequences” to fiber optic services as well mobile internet connectivity. Internet companies confirmed the damage.
Is Left Wing trying to Sabotage Paris Olympics?
At the time of writing, nobody has claimed responsibility for either attack. Officials have yet to identify any suspects involved in the cable-cutting sabotage, but they believe the disruption to train services could have been committed by people with “ultra-left” political leanings.
The incidents around the Olympics come at a time when Russia has been blamed for a string of disinformation targeting France and has also been linked to a series of potential sabotage attacks in Europe.
The second largest French telecoms company, SFR, appeared to be one of the most impacted by the vandalism. “Our long-distance fiber network was sabotaged between 1 am and 3 am last night in five different locations,” a spokesperson from SFR told WIRED. SFR says its maintenance teams are working on repairing the damage and said the impact on its customers was “limited.”
“Also, between three and eight other operators are impacted since they use our long-distance network,” the spokesperson said.
Nicolas Guillaume, the CEO of telecom firm Nasca Group, which owns the ISP company Netalis, told WIRED he believed the damage was “deliberate” and that ISPs serving both customers and businesses have been impacted. Several of the damaged cables, according to images shared on X by the CEO, appear to have clean cuts across them. Guillaume says it is likely that people opened the ducts where cables are stored and cut them. Internet company Free 1337 also confirmed it was working on fixing the damage.
While billions of people around the world use wireless connections, the underlying internet backbone is made up of cables traversing across countries and under seas. This infrastructure, which is able to automatically reroute traffic to limit outages, can be fragile and vulnerable to attack or disruption. EU politicians have called for internet infrastructure security to be improved.
