Dozens of people have been arrested in France for wanting to disrupt the Olympic Games, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Monday.
Security forces arrested nearly 50 people, Darmanin told the France 2 television channel. They had wanted to carry out “sabotage actions or radical protests” during the first Olympic competitions, but authorities prevented this, he said.
The newspaper Le Parisien reported that 45 members of the radical environmental movement Extinction Rebellion had been arrested. They had planned actions to protest against the social and ecological consequences of the Olympics.
The newspaper Le Figaro reported that an ultra-left-wing activist was arrested on Sunday in Oissel, about 121 kilometres north-west of Paris.
The man was arrested at a French national train or SNCF location and had “access keys to SNCF technical premises” along with “wire cutters [and a] set of universal keys” in his vehicle along with literature linked to the ultra-left, the story said.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said that this arrest was not connected to the investigtion into the arson attacks that disrupted traffic on Friday hours ahead of the Olympics’ opening ceremonies, affecting hundreds of thousands of travellers. No arrests have been made yet in that incident, the office said.
Darmanin also told France 2 that his office has a clearer picture of who may be behind those attacks.
“We have identified a number of profiles of individuals who may have carried out these very deliberate and highly targeted acts of sabotage,” he said.
Darmanin said that the attacks align with “a traditional method of the far-left.”
A letter of responsibility with references to the radical left-wing scene and criticism of the Olympic Games had been sent to several media outlets.
According to Darmanin, it must be examined whether this is authentic or if people are merely trying to claim credit for the acts.
Trains are now back to normal, Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said on the channel RTL.
Whether the perpetrators received support from individuals within the SNCF remains uncertain, Darmanin announced.
Unknown persons have also damaged fibre-optic networks in parts of France overnight, but Paris, where the summer Olympics is currently being held, was not affected, French media reported on Monday.
Six of France’s 101 administrative regions were hit, according to the reports.
France’s acting Secretary of State for Digital Affairs Marina Ferrari, in a post on Monday on X, said the damage affected local access to cable, landline and mobile services. Efforts are being made to fully restore the services, she said.
“I condemn these cowardly and irresponsible acts in the strongest terms,” Ferrari wrote.
The newspaper Le Parisien reported that the providers Bouygues, Free, and SFR are affected. SFR reported vandalism in the six areas between 1 am (2300 GMT on Sunday) and 3 am. Cables were cut. This impacted both the landline and mobile networks, including those of foreign providers using the SFR network.
According to the newspaper, it is still unclear how many people are affected by the incident. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the damage.
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