France’s High-Speed Rail Lines Targeted by ‘Coordinated Sabotage’ on First Day of Olympics

CNN reported on Friday that France’s high-speed rail lines were in disarray after a “coordinated sabotage” that left hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded ahead of the Olympics in Paris.

Anchor Boris Sanchez asked senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem about the attack, which apparently took place overnight and resulted in several trains being disrupted:

Kayyem: So on the impact side, it’s going to impact a couple hundred thousand travelers, they think, over the course of the time that the trains are down. There are alternatives, lots of shuttles are being used. I’ve talked to a couple of the Team Olympic Committee, National Olympic Committees. They’re going to get their folks on busses, as is the U.S. Olympic Committee.

As to who it is, there’s high likelihood incidents. For one, the Russians have always been worrisome during this Olympics. But this is not the kind of attack that you would expect the Russians to do. They would generally use a cyberattack. This is more physical in nature. And so there’s been a lot of discussion about political groups, maybe from the left wing. And the reason why there’s people are saying that as you remember, Paris just went through this, or France just went through this absolutely quick and crazy election in which they really did head off the far-right, but that there’s still a coalition government. And a lot of these pieces are not in place.

There is always, as you know, Boris, also an anti-Olympic sentiment for any city that’s hosting an Olympics. And those people have been threatening and protesting over the course of the last two or three weeks. So the officials will focus on it. In about, I don’t know, four minutes the opening ceremonies will start and it’s, I’m right above it and it’s plenty crowded.

Sanchez: Yeah, I can imagine now these attacks were described as coordinated, prepared and organized. From your perspective, was this at all preventable? Was this a lapse in intelligence?

Kayyem: Yeah. It’s hard to say. I mean, that obviously is a lapse in intelligence because we were not hearing that they knew of anything. Although I get a lot of these intel reports. There were discussions about concerns about this kind of vandalism. This was pretty well-organized. The one silver lining is whoever did it — I’m not defending them — clearly did not want a mass casualty event. It’s done in the middle of the night. It’s done in a way in which it was clear that the trains would not be functional. In terms of a lapse, this is a country, like most of Europe, is very dependent on rail. There’s rail lines everywhere. And a lot of them are vulnerable. They’re in fields, they’re in suburbs and, and other places.

CNN reported on its site that the “malicious” attacks on the rails included cases of arson and quoted France’s state railway company SNCF’s Twitter/X post that explained: “a large number of trains were diverted or canceled,” and asked “all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station.”

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the prosecutor’s office in Paris opened an investigation into the damaging of state property and organized crime.

Watch the video above via CNN.