PARIS: French anti-terrorist investigators took over the hunt yesterday for saboteurs who sparked passenger chaos over the weekend with a series of mysterious attacks on the country’s rail network.
Thousands of passengers suffered long delays or cancellations on TGV high-speed trains to London, Brussels and across France on Saturday after attackers jammed iron bars into overhead power cables at four points near Paris.
“Clearly, when it happens in different places at the same time there must have been a concerted sabotage attempt.
“An enquiry is under way. I hope it gets somewhere,” said Claude Gueant, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s chief of staff.
In a separate incident late on Sunday in the southwest of the country, a high-speed train rammed into a pair of concrete blocks placed on a line. No-one was injured and the train was only slightly damaged.
The state-run SNCF rail company and officials said that they could not yet be certain that Sunday’s incident was connected to other acts of vandalism, but that Saturday’s attacks appeared to be part of a well-organised campaign.
Five out of six recent attacks on the rail network have involved iron bars being placed on overhead cables, said SNCF chairman Guillaume Pepy.
Officials said the sophistication of the latest attacks showed the saboteurs were technically very competent, since neutralising 25,000-volt power lines required expert knowledge.
“The perpetrators knew they were not endangering the security of passengers by derailing a train, but that they would get people talking about them,” Pepy told Le Figaro newspaper. “We are dealing with unhinged people,” he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks. France’s rail network has in the past been attacked by blackmailers seeking pay-offs, by striking workers and by political groups.
In 2004, a previously unknown group called AZF placed at least one bomb on a railway line and threatened to explode others across the rail system unless the government paid it 4mn euros (in today’s money, over $5mn).
But the money was never paid and the group faded back into obscurity.
Paris-based anti-terror investigators have taken over the inquiry into the latest attacks, which was previously in the hands of prosecutors in provincial offices, officials said.
On Saturday, passengers on more than 160 high-speed trains between Paris and Brussels, London, northern Europe and the south of France suffered delays or cancellations due to the vandalism.
Services had earlier been disrupted the same day by the discovery of the mutilated body of a man on the ordinary main line from Paris to the north.
France’s super-efficient rail network is a source of national pride, but in recent months it has been hit with a series of incidents, some caused by infrastructure problems but several by vandalism.
Just a week ago, the SNCF said that gun shots had severed an overhead cable on the line of a TGV train in the Paris region, severely disrupting traffic for 50 trains.
Eurostar trains between London, Paris and Brussels have also been badly disrupted after a September 11 fire in the Channel tunnel injured several people and shut one of the two undersea rail lines.
In recent months, several breakdowns have angered passengers, and last week Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau said the state would more than double investment in the network to 13bn euros by 2015. – AFP |
