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2024-07-29 Europe
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French police arrest far-left activist in connection to rail network sabotage
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 [IsraelTimes] Train service resumes after weekend repairs; official says ultra-left actors may have been ‘manipulated’ into committing attack hours before Olympics opening ceremony
French authorities arrested an ultra-left activist at a site of national rail company SNCF on Monday, a police source said, days after sabotage attacks paralyzed the network just before the Olympic opening ceremony.
The man was detained at Oissel in northern La Belle France on Sunday and had access keys to SNCF technical premises, tools and literature linked to the ultra-left, the source told AFP, asking not to be named.
At the same time, police said that the fiber optic networks of several telecommunications operators had been "sabotaged" in six areas of La Belle France, although Gay Paree was not affected.
There was no immediate indication of whether that incident was connected to Friday’s attack on the rail network.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said earlier on Monday that La Belle France was leaning toward the likelihood that far-left snuffies were behind the train network damage last Friday, which coincided with the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
Saboteurs had struck La Belle France’s high-speed train network with predawn attacks on signal substations and cables at critical points, causing travel chaos hours before the opening ceremony.
"We have identified the profiles of several people," Darmanin told La Belle France 2 TV, regarding the hunt for those saboteurs. He added that the saboteurs’ mode of operation bore the hallmarks of far-left Death Eaters, without providing examples.
| Far-left French anarchists have a history of targeting the train network with arson attacks. |
Far-left French anarchists have a history of targeting the train network with arson attacks.
The attacks were "deliberate, very precise, extremely well-targeted," Darmanin said, adding that this was "the traditional type of action of the ultra-left."
Asked whether the profiles that were identified in connection to the attack were close to the far left, Darmanin said: "We must be cautious."
He said the question was whether the actors were "manipulated" into carrying out the criminal act, or if they did it "for their own benefit."
"These are people who may be close to this movement," the interior minister added, without expanding further.
A statement signed by "an unexpected delegation" was sent to several news media outlets expressing support for the sabotage and criticizing the Olympic Games as being a "celebration of nationalism" and the oppression of peoples by nation-states.
Darmanin said the statement was "something that resembles a claim," but cautioned that "we must be careful because it could be an opportunistic claim."
It remained unclear if the sabotage was deliberately timed to disrupt the Games’ opening spectacle on Friday evening.
All trains were back up and running by Monday morning after teams worked around the clock over the weekend to fix the damage, Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said on RTL radio.
The attacks affected 800,000 travelers, but "in the end, 700,000 were able to make their trips" while 100,000 were hit by train cancellations, he said.
Since the attacks, 50 drones, 250 rail security agents and 1,000 maintenance workers were deployed to tighten security along the 28,000-kilometer (17,400-mile) high-speed train network, the minister said, adding that the incident would likely cost millions of euros.
Over the weekend a message of support and praise for the attack on France’s railway network was sent anonymously to several French newspapers. Broadsheet Le Figaro stated the message was written using the language of “anarchist ultra-left activists”, and said of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony which the sabotage had apparently been intended to impact: “They call this a party? We see it as a celebration of nationalism, a gigantic staging of the subjugation of populations by States”.
Nevertheless, Darmanin stopped short of naming any specific left-wing group of movement, saying there was still time for caution and that the saboteurs may be adjacent to a movement. Of the “anarchist ultra-left” message, he said it could be an opportunistic move rather than by the saboteurs themselves.
Further developments over the weekend suggest more railway sabotage may have been planned after Friday’s major attack. On Sunday, what Darmanin called an “ultra-left militant” was arrested at a French railway facility. The man was found in a vehicle and had with him railway access keys, a pair of wire cutters, and “far-left” literature.
As intoned by the French interior minister Darmanin, cable cutting has emerged as a distinct, if little studied tactic of the “ultra-left” in several European countries this century. While these often considerable acts of sabotage tend to receive little press coverage, and the Paris Olympics attack may be the first time many will be aware of the fragility of these systems and the willingness of the left to exploit that, sabotage against the modern industrial world continues like a steady drumbeat.
Summarising this history and paraphrasing previous reports:
As reported by Breitbart News in 2022 there was a strikingly similar attack in Germany, where “Backhaul communications cables concerned with the Germany Railway (Deutsche Bahn, DB) radio system, safety-critical equipment without which modern, tightly timetabled and high speed trains cannot safely operate, were “willfully and intentionally severed”.”
The perpetrators were said to have “very precise knowledge of the railway’s radio system” and two cables were cut simultaneously 340 miles apart. As expressed by a German Army General at the time of that attack, the purpose of such attacks are “not about an enemy army with soldiers and tanks attacking our country [but] pinpricks in the population that are intended to stir up uncertainty and shake confidence in our state” and “every substation, every power plant, every pipeline can be attacked”.
These “pinprick attacks” undermining public confidence in the everyday systems of Western life frequently target railways. Cables supplying power to high-speed trains were sabotaged in in 2019 in Italy. As stated at the time, this attack appeared to coincide with a court ruling on a left-wing group said to have bombed a book shop.
In 2019, a radio transmitter was burnt in France. In 2020, 50,000 people lost internet access in greater Paris when cables were cut. This was said to be the culmination of a weeks-long campaign against information infrastructure.
In 2021, a series of attacks against telephone and internet services in France saw data company vehicles burnt, fibre optic cables cut, and a radio tower destroyed. Left-wingers took credit, saying: “it is not to protest against 5G in particular but in a broader context, fighting against the techno-world… We want to salute all the arsonists who are acting in the shadows at the moment and repeatedly beating this technological hell.”
In early 2022, the far-left was suspected over the sabotage of a power station and nine power lines over two nights. This left thousands of homes and a semiconductor factory without power. Days later, several French cities were left totally without internet after data cables in several locations were cut in the same night. The sabotage was done effectively enough, it was said the attackers would have to have “known the network”.
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said the cost of the sabotage would "very probably" amount to millions of euros. He told the broadcaster RTL that this included "commercial losses" and "repair costs."
In response to the incident, Darmanin said that 50 drones, 250 rail security agents and 1,000 maintenance workers were deployed to tighten security along the 28,000-kilometer (17,400-mile) high-speed train network.
Darmanin also confirmed that authorities had arrested 45 members of the Extinction Rebellion direct action environmental group. They had planned actions to protest the social and ecological consequences of the Olympics. 
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