Still no names for Olympic eve saboteurs

The saboteurs who tried to bring France’s railways to a halt on the eve of the Olympics have yet to be identified.

Around 800,000 passengers were affected when services were interrupted over a three-day period, but as the Paris Olympics draw to a close this was the only major security issue surrounding the Games.

Police and investigators remain close-lipped about the damage to fibre-optic signalling infrastructure that was tampered with, and in some cases set on fire, at three key points on railway lines connecting the rest of the country with Paris.

A similar attempt at disruption on the high-speed (LGV) South-East line was foiled thanks to the presence of railway employees carrying out maintenance that night.

Without giving details, Interior minister Gerald Darmanin revealed that intelligence agencies had identified “a certain number of profiles” capable of executing this type of “voluntary, very precise, extremely well-targeted” sabotage.

Their style, he added, suggested the ultra-left’s “traditional methods” although the minister stressed that there was no firm proof that they were involved.

At the same time, police sources quoted in Le Monde confirmed that investigators were following a main lead that pointed to unobtrusive far-left cells working under cover of extreme secrecy who shunned modern communications to avoid detection.

Meanwhile, stepped-up surveillance of transport and communications networks succeeded in thwarting a further attack on fibre-optic cables used to broadcast Olympic events in the Chateau de Vincennes fan zone.

After repeated interruptions and breakdowns, experts trawled through CCTV footage and found that this time the offender was nothing more than an innocent stone marten.