France’s telecoms network has suffered isolated outages across the country after being targeted by vandals, with 11,000 customers affected.
Marina Ferrari, junior minister for digital matters said in a post on social media platform X some landline and mobile services were affected following the overnight attacks.
“I condemn in the strongest terms these cowardly and irresponsible acts,” she wrote.
“Thank you to the teams mobilised this morning to carry out repairs and restore damaged sites to service.”
French media reports on Monday said telecom installations belonging to companies SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free had been vandalised, affecting mainly fixed-line services.
The reports in Le Parisien newspaper and BFM TV said cables in electrical cabinets had been cut in southern France, and that installations in the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris had also been targeted.
France’s telecoms regulator ARCEP said most of those affected used the SFR or Free networks.
A police official also said at least six of France’s administrative departments were affected, including the region around the Mediterranean city of Marseille which is hosting football and sailing competitions for the Olym.
It comes after reports said a far-left activist had been arrested in connection with a series of attacks on the country’s high-speed train network which caused travel chaos ahead of the Paris Olym opening ceremony.
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Railway attack
France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin appeared to confirm media reports of an arrest being made on Sunday in Seine-Maritime, Normandy.
But the Paris prosecutor’s office said it was unconnected to the disruption on Friday – and that no one has been arrested so far in the national investigation into the arson attacks.
It was not immediately clear if the telecoms vandalism was connected to the railway attack which marred the start of the Olym.
Vandals used explosive devices to set off fires which damaged signal boxes along lines connecting the capital with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west and Strasbourg in the east, state-owned railway operator SNCF said.
Another attack on the Paris-Marseille line was foiled.
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Hundreds of thousands of people were left stranded at stations after the overnight attacks on the TGV network which authorities called coordinated sabotage.
Eurostar’s high-speed services linking London and Paris were forced to switch to slower lines while Germany’s national railway company Deutsche Bahn warned of disruption to long-distance services.
Traffic only returned to normal on Monday morning, but only after around 800,000 customers had faced disruption.
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The opening ceremony was held at landmarks across Paris, including the Eiffel Tower. Pic: AP
Opening ceremony held under heavy security
More than 300,000 spectators lined the banks of the River Seine for Friday evening’s opening ceremony which included the athletes’ parade through the heart of Paris on a flotilla of barges and riverboats.
France deployed 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents to secure the celebratory event.
Snipers were on rooftops and drones kept watch from the air.
But while the capital was locked down for the opening ceremony, security elsewhere in the country has been lighter.
