Police officers at Gare de Lyon station<\/p>\n
Russia will be one of the prime suspects in Friday morning\u2019s attacks on the French rail network<\/a>, as suspicions swirl that Vladimir Putin has been yearning for a chance to humiliate Emmanuel Macron.<\/p>\n French intelligence sources have also hinted it may have been the work of Left-wing radicals, while Israel\u2019s foreign minister has claimed the sabotage was carried out by Iran.<\/p>\n But as of Friday afternoon, with theories coming from multiple quarters and little to no hard evidence, it remained unclear who exactly the perpetrators were.<\/p>\n French authorities had laid on a large, high-tech security regime to defend the Olympics<\/a>, with Reaper drones in the skies and AI-powered cameras on the ground to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.<\/p>\n But Friday\u2019s attack suggests they paid far less attention to key rail routes<\/a>, which were sabotaged by old-fashioned arson methods rather than cyber-attacks.<\/p>\n The perpetrators had a good working knowledge of the railway<\/a> and were most likely seeking to cause maximum disruption while avoiding any loss of human life.<\/p>\n There have been five incidents of damage to the SNCF rail network, all of them targeting electronic or signalling boxes. French media reports said bundles of cables in the network had been burned or severed.<\/p>\n The result was around 50 per cent of the trains in the north and east of France were not running as of Friday morning, while the high-speed TVG network was also paralysed. The disruption is expected to last throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n The attacks came in the early hours, when no trains were running on the high-speed network, and were carried out in such a way that control centres would have become immediately aware of the damage and shut down the system.<\/p>\n Had the perpetrators struck during the morning rush and employed acts of sabotage that could not have been so easily detected remotely \u2013 such as parking vehicles across the line \u2013 the outcome might have been very different.<\/p>\n France has not yet accused any group or state over the sabotage, but many will immediately point the finger at Moscow. Other possible suspects include terrorism groups, Left-wing radicals or environmental activists.<\/p>\n The head of SNCF has described the arsonists as a \u201cband of lunatics\u201d but gave no clues as to their identity. Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, said the attacks were carried out in a \u201cprepared and coordinated manner,\u201d vowing to \u201cfind and punish\u201d the saboteurs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are obviously in a situation of conflict with Russia, and Russia is obviously not going to do anything, and that\u2019s an understatement, to help these Olympic Games be a success,\u201d suggested Jean de Gliniasty, the former French ambassador to Moscow, in an interview with French broadcaster LCI.<\/p>\n Back in April, Mr Macron, the French president, said he had \u201cno doubt whatsoever<\/a>, including in terms of information,\u201d that Russian leaders were planning to disrupt or damage the event.<\/p>\n Around the same time an aide to Mr Macron warned: \u201cThere is a hardening from Russia, which we have been seeing for several months.\u201d<\/p>\n A security source said a \u201csmoking gun\u201d had not yet been discovered to establish whether the French railway sabotage was the result of a Russian hybrid attack.<\/p>\n They added: \u201cWe do assess overall that Russian, and their supporters, activity is rising, building on the foundations established by previous active measures.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will see an increase in both the severity and frequency of incidents in the \u2018grey zone\u2019, designed to disrupt and deter the supporters of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n However, a French intelligence source told AFP news agency that the sabotage was similar to previous incidents involving the far-Left. \u201cThe modus operandi \u2013 arson attacks on installations \u2013 resembles that used by the ultra-Left in the past,\u201d the source said.<\/p>\n Israel, meanwhile, has blamed Iran, its arch nemesis in the Middle East, which continues to fund and support Hamas, as well as the Lebanese group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n \u201cThe sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Iran\u2019s axis of evil and radical Islam,\u201d\u00a0 said Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n France\u2019s diplomatic and military support for Ukraine <\/a>has put it in the crosshairs of a new Russian campaign against Europe known as \u201chybrid warfare,\u201d which involves sabotage, arson, cyber-attacks and other attempts to destabilise Western democracy.<\/p>\n And there is already a precedent for Russia launching arson attacks on businesses and infrastructure in Europe.<\/p>\n