Saboteurs struck France’s TGV high-speed train network in a series of pre-dawn attacks across the country, causing travel chaos and exposing security gaps ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony later on Friday.

The coordinated sabotage took place as France mounted a massive security operation, opens new tab involving tens of thousands of police and soldiers to safeguard the capital for the sporting extravaganza, sucking in security resources from across the country, Reuters reported. 

SNCF, the state-owned railway operator, said vandals had damaged signal substations and cables along the lines connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west and Strasbourg in the east. Another attack on the Paris-Marseille line was foiled.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks on the high-speed rail network, which is a source of national pride for many in France. Two security sources said the modus operandi meant initial suspicions fell on leftist militants or environmental activists, but they said there was not yet any evidence.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said the probe would be overseen by its organised crime office, with the anti-terrorist sub-directorate (SDAT), a branch of the judicial police that typically monitors hard-left, extreme-right and radical environmental groups, coordinating investigations.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal declined to speculate about the possibility of such groups being behind the sabotage.

“What we know, what we see, is that this operation was prepared, coordinated, that nerve centres were targeted, which shows a certain knowledge of the network to know where to strike,” he said.

The coordinated strikes on the rail network fed into a sense of apprehension ahead of Friday evening’s Olympics opening ceremony in the heart of Paris. Operations at the Basel-Mulhouse airport on France’s border with Switzerland were briefly suspended due to a bomb alert.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said he had full confidence in the French authorities. “I don’t have concerns,” he told reporters at the Olympic Village.

Spectators took their seats along the banks of the River Seine for the opening ceremony, with around 300,000 people expected to watch the athletes parade by on a flotilla of barges and riverboats, with billions tuning in on TV.

France has deployed 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents to secure the ceremony, with snipers on rooftops, and drones in the air. But while the capital is locked down, security elsewhere in the country is lighter.

The attacks hit signalling installations on the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines with fires set off by explosive devices, the SNCF said.

Traffic would resume as normal on the eastern line from Saturday morning, the rail operator said, while trains heading northwest to Brittany and the southeast should be running closer to schedule by Saturday. On northern routes, 80% of high-speed trains were operating with one to two hour delays, it said.

Eurostar’s high-speed services linking London and Paris were forced onto slower lines while Germany’s Deutsche Bahn warned of disruption to long-distance services.

At the Gare de L’Est, Xavier Hiegel, 39, said he was trying to get home for the weekend and could not believe that people would want to harm the Olympics.

“The Games bring jobs so this really is nonsense. I hope the people responsible will be found and punished,” he said.

SNCF chief Jean-Pierre Farandou said some 800,000 customers had been impacted ahead of a busy weekend for French holidaymakers. Thousands of rail staff had been deployed to repair the damage.

“This attack is not a coincidence, it’s an effort to destabilise France,” Valerie Pecresse, president of the Paris region, told reporters.

Paris 2024 said it was working closely with the SNCF to assess the situation. The attacks will make it tougher for people travelling to Paris for Olympic events.

“It’s a disaster,” said Parisian Brigitte Dupont. “Today is the opening of the Olympic Games, a huge event that was supposed to be magnificent, and this is spoiling people’s joy.”

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle endorsed Kamala Harris’ bid for president on Friday in a roughly one-minute long video that captured a private phone call between the couple and the current vice president.

“We called to say Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” Obama told Harris.

“I am proud of you. This is going to be historic,” the former first lady told Harris.

Talking into a cell phone and cracking a few smiles, Harris expressed her gratitude for the endorsement and their long friendship.

“Thank you both. It means so much. And we’re gonna have some fun with this too,” Harris said.

The campaign said the video was the actual call, not a reenactment.

Harris’s surprise bid against Republican rival Donald Trump continues to gain steam from supporters, donors and politicians less than a week after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race amid slumping poll numbers.

Obama, the first U.S Black president, remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic party even after more than a decade has passed since he was last elected.

Obama has lent his support to Biden during big-money fundraisers, which were among some of the biggest blockbuster events of his campaign.

The endorsement could help activate and sustain energy and fundraising for Harris’ campaign and it signals he is likely to get on the campaign trail for Harris once she is officially the presumptive nominee.

Obama initially withheld his endorsement even as Biden, his former vice president, anointed her as his heir apparent. Obama reportedly did not want to put his thumb on the scale as the party worked through the process of determining its nominee. – Reuters

Negotiations on a ceasefire-for-hostages deal in the Gaza conflict appear to be in their closing stages and U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will discuss remaining gaps on Thursday, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The official, briefing reporters ahead of their talks, said the remaining obstacles are bridgeable and there will be more meetings aimed at reaching a deal between Israel and Hamas over the next week, Reuters reported.

Hamas-led fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct.7, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies, triggering a war in which more than 38,000 people in Gaza have been killed.

Hamas and other militants are still holding 120 hostages; Israel believes around a third of them are dead.

Months of stop-and-start talks have failed to produce a deal to gain release of some of the remaining hostages.

The senior U.S. official said both Israel and Hamas still have some issues to resolve but that a deal is close in which a six-week ceasefire would take place in exchange for the release of women, elderly men and wounded hostages over a 42-day period, read the report.

“It’s a very different negotiation now than just a month ago when we had some fundamentally unbridgeable issues,” the official said.

Biden will hold talks with Netanyahu and then later in the day Vice President Kamala Harris will have a separate meeting with the Israeli leader.

Harris has taken over as the presumed Democratic choice for the November presidential election against Republican Donald Trump, after Biden opted not to seek reelection again under pressure from Democrats concerned about his mental acuity.

The senior U.S. official said both Biden and Harris are “completely aligned” on U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza, Reuters reported.

“The Israelis will hear full alignment,” the official said.

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