PARIS, France July 26 \u2013 Hours before the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics, French rail company SNCF says its high-speed network has been targeted by \u201cmalicious acts\u201d aimed at paralysing the system.<\/p>\n
Several high-speed TGV lines have been hit to the west, north and east of Paris and queues have formed at Montparnasse station which serves destinations to the west of the capital.<\/p>\n
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete has strongly condemned \u201ccriminal acts\u201d that he said would affect people\u2019s holiday plans.<\/p>\n
A number of trains have been cancelled and SNCF has warned that the situation could last \u201cat least all weekend while repairs are conducted\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sports Minister Am\u00e9lie Oud\u00e9a-Cast\u00e9ra described the attacks as \u201cdownright appalling\u201d, adding that the impact on the public and Olympic athletes was currently being assessed.<\/p>\n
More than 300,000 spectators are expected in the heart of Paris on Friday for an opening ceremony that will see thousands of Olympic athletes sailing down the River Seine.<\/p>\n
SNCF said fires had been set alight aimed at damaging its facilities.<\/p>\n
A source close to the investigation told AFP news agency that the attack involved acts of \u201csabotage\u201d.<\/p>\n
Although no-one has admitted targeting the high-speed network, there will inevitably be concern that it involves apparently co-ordinated acts of vandalism.<\/p>\n
Some high-speed services have been diverted on to other lines, causing a knock-on effect to other services.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS, France July 26 \u2013 Hours before the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics, French rail company SNCF says its high-speed network has been targeted by \u201cmalicious acts\u201d aimed at paralysing the system. Several high-speed TGV lines have been hit to the west, north and east of Paris and queues have formed at Montparnasse station […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}