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Louise Thomas

Editor

Fibre-optic cables were cut across France on Monday, disrupting communications just days after the railway network was crippled by coordinated arson attacks close to Paris.

Police said it was too early to tell if there was any link to the sabotage of the high-speed rail lines, which happened hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin suggested on Monday that a far-left activist had been arrested in connection with the arson attacks.

Marina Ferrari, the junior minister for digital matters, said some fixed and mobile services were affected by the latest vandalism, which she called “cowardly and irresponsible”.

Cables in electrical cabinets were cut across southern France, as well as in the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris.

A spokesperson for telecoms operator SFR said its long-distance network had been hit by five cuts in five different parts of France, but that the impact on customers was minimal because the network was designed to reroute traffic.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin dismissed Western media speculation that Russia was behind Friday’s railway attacks, which disrupted an estimated 800,000 passengers. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “These are just the latest fakes – more unsubstantiated accusations.”

He added: “The fact is that there are a lot of such low-grade media, and even respected ones, that have recently not shied away from doing anything to blame Russia for everything that is happening.”

The attacks on the rail network affected travel to and from London beneath the English Channel, between France and neighbouring Belgium, and across the west, north, and east of France.

One in four Eurostar trains was cancelled over the weekend, as passengers at London St Pancras faced 90-minute delays.

Describing the consequences for the rail network as “massive and serious”, French prime minister Gabriel Attal vowed that the authorities would “find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts”.

A 40-year-old Russian man suspected of planning to sabotage the Games was arrested on Wednesday. However, French police have not publicly stated any link between that arrest and the arson attacks.

The 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games are set to be the biggest event ever to have been organised in France, with 10,500 athletes competing and millions of spectators attending – as many as 15.3 million visitors, according to local reports.

The two-and-a-half-week festival of sport involves 32 different disciplines and will conclude on 11 August after 329 events.

France is deploying 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents to secure the Games, with snipers on rooftops and drones keeping watch from the air.

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