dpa
Paris
Severe storms caused widespread diruptions to a section of France’s high-speed rail network on Wednesday.
Traffic on the South-East line, which connects Paris with Marseille and Montpellier, is seeing major service interruptions, national rail operator SNCF said.
A TGV train crashed into trees lying on the tracks between Paris and Dijon. There were no injuries, but this incident has led to 80,000 passengers being affected by delays and cancellations. Last week, arson attacks on the French high-speed network severely disrupted rail traffic shortly before the start of the Olympic Games.
It is not yet known who is behind the attacks.
Meanwhile, a fan zone at the Olympic Games in Paris has been hit twice by sabotage, days after cables were also cut on long distance train lines and key French fibre optic lines.
On Monday, officials at the Château de Vincennes fan zone on the outskirts of Paris discovered that transmission cables to the big screens had been severed.
They were repaired and then damaged again overnight, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.
No link has yet been established with the other sabotage investigations concerning the Olympic Games.
Fibre optic cables belonging to several telecommunications providers were previously damaged across France and unknown assailants carried out sabotage on the French railway network, causing huge disruption to train services shortly before the opening of the Games last week.
