France suspects leftists in rail attacks as telecoms networks hit
Clients of SFR and Free mainly impacted
Comes just days after rail sabotage
France on high alert as Olympics take place
Adds details on how telecoms network was hit, paragraphs 2-3, Paris police chief and investigation, paragraphs 6-8
By Gabriel Stargardter and Leigh Thomas
PARIS, July 29 (Reuters) -Vandals sabotaged France's telecoms networks overnight, piling pressure on French security services trying to secure the Olympics after authorities said they suspected left-wing groups of attacking rail lines ahead of the opening ceremony in Paris.
The cuts to long distance telecoms cables at five sites early on Monday "look like sabotage", Romain Bonenfant, general director of the French Telecoms Federation, told Reuters.
"It was an operation that was prepared. If it wasn't people who work for (us), it was people who had information."
Police have yet to arrest anyone for Friday's attacks on high-speed rail lines with explosive devices, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Monday authorities suspected members of far-left militant groups due to the nature of the sabotage.
"We have identified the profiles of several people," Darmanin told France 2 TV.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez declined to say whether there was any link between the telecoms and rail attacks.
"There is a modus operandi in that first attack that makes you think of the far-left," he told reporters.
However, like the rail attacks investigation, the Paris prosecutors office said the telecoms 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 far-left, far-right and radical environmental groups, coordinating investigations.
French telecoms regulator Arcep said the sabotage of telecom networks affected 11,000 people, mainly customers of the SFR and Free services.
A spokesperson for SFR said the impact was minimal because the network was designed to reroute traffic. Free said some of its services had been affected by "a multi-operator network incident" in six different departments across France.
"Since 2.15 a.m. our national network is experiencing significant slowdown," Free said on X. "All our services are provided, sometimes with a degradation in quality of service."
LEFTISTS SUSPECTED
In recent years, France has mainly been targeted in attacks by Islamist militants, but security services have been increasingly concerned about far-left or anarchist groups, which typically oppose the state and capitalism.
The then-head of France's domestic intelligence agency, Nicolas Lerner, told Le Monde newspaper last year President Emmanuel Macron's divisive 2023 pension shake-up had helped lure recruits to far-left groups, which have increasingly added environmental issues to their ideologies.
"In recent years, the far-left movements have been known for particularly violent clandestine actions, including arson campaigns ... ransacking and destruction of property," Lerner, who now leads the foreign spy agency, said in the interview.
In a 2023 report on terrorism trends, European police agency Europol said left-wing and anarchist groups typically attacked "critical infrastructure, such as repeaters and antennas, government institutions and private companies" with their "most common modus operandi" being arson and explosive devices.
Train services in France were back up and running by early Monday after teams worked around the clock at the weekend to fix the damage, Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete told RTL radio.
He said 800,000 people had faced travel disruptions and said the cost to the state-owned rail operator SNCF would be considerable.
Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Leigh Thomas; additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Ros Russell
الأصول ذات الصلة
آخر الأخبار
إخلاء المسؤولية: تتيح كيانات XM Group خدمة تنفيذية فقط والدخول إلى منصة تداولنا عبر الإنترنت، مما يسمح للشخص بمشاهدة و/أو استخدام المحتوى المتاح على موقع الويب أو عن طريقه، وهذا المحتوى لا يراد به التغيير أو التوسع عن ذلك. يخضع هذا الدخول والاستخدام دائماً لما يلي: (1) الشروط والأحكام؛ (2) تحذيرات المخاطر؛ (3) إخلاء المسؤولية الكامل. لذلك يُقدم هذا المحتوى على أنه ليس أكثر من معلومات عامة. تحديداً، يرجى الانتباه إلى أن المحتوى المتاح على منصة تداولنا عبر الإنترنت ليس طلباً أو عرضاً لدخول أي معاملات في الأسواق المالية. التداول في أي سوق مالي به مخاطرة عالية برأس مالك.
جميع المواد المنشورة على منصة تداولنا مخصصة للأغراض التعليمية/المعلوماتية فقط ولا تحتوي - ولا ينبغي اعتبار أنها تحتوي - على نصائح أو توصيات مالية أو ضريبية أو تجارية، أو سجلاً لأسعار تداولنا، أو عرضاً أو طلباً لأي معاملة في أي صكوك مالية أو عروض ترويجية مالية لا داعي لها.
أي محتوى تابع للغير بالإضافة إلى المحتوى الذي أعدته XM، مثل الآراء، والأخبار، والأبحاث، والتحليلات والأسعار وغيرها من المعلومات أو روابط مواقع تابعة للغير وواردة في هذا الموقع تُقدم لك "كما هي"، كتعليق عام على السوق ولا تعتبر نصيحة استثمارية. يجب ألا يُفسر أي محتوى على أنه بحث استثماري، وأن تلاحظ وتقبل أن المحتوى غير مُعدٍ وفقاً للمتطلبات القانونية المصممة لتعزيز استقلالية البحث الاستثماري، وبالتالي، فهو بمثابة تواصل تسويقي بموجب القوانين واللوائح ذات الصلة. فضلاً تأكد من أنك قد قرأت وفهمت الإخطار بالبحوث الاستثمارية غير المستقلة والتحذير من مخاطر المعلومات السابقة، والذي يمكنك الاطلاع عليه هنا.
