Everything had been in place for months. This Friday morning, Thomas, Manon and their 6-year-old son had to reach Nantes station from Les Sables-d'Olonne by car to take a train to Paris. The goal: to arrive on time to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. A moment “awaited for more than a year, after having participated in the various draws and paying several hundred euros for our places,” says Thomas. This was without taking into account the malice of a handful of individuals determined to cause trouble.
Because in the early morning, as the couple prepares to start their journey, the news breaks: their train is delayed, then canceled. “We still believed in it until we had the sign in front of us. But when we arrived in the station hall, we saw all the displays disappear and we understood that the rest of the day would be complicated,” remembers the forty-year-old. Very quickly, decisions follow one another. Thomas and his wife first choose to return home, sadly giving up on the event. “And then we said to ourselves that it was too stupid, that we still had time to go to Paris by car,” he continues. After more than 4 hours of driving and a passage through the “completely deserted” ring road, the family finally narrowly reached the doors of the ceremony.
Avoiding children's disappointment is paramount for many families like Thomas's. The sabotage operation which paralyzed several lines of the SNCF network this Friday, July 26, affected the journey of more than 800,000 travelers. The situation “should last at least the whole weekend,” according to the railway company and concerns all TGV routes, except that of the South-East. Enough to annoy vacationers who were preparing to go on vacation and, above all, prevent those with tickets for the evening of the Olympics from going there. “It’s really scandalous,” comments Thomas. There were fears of railway workers' strikes, but even they agreed to let the French travel. Everyone was sad in the station. I don't see the point in wasting this moment.
If Thomas and Manon struggled so much, it was also because their son was waiting for the event with all his might. “He’s been talking about it for months. He worked on the Olympics with his school, he started skateboarding and is already interested in the sport. It would have been really difficult to give up the joy of sharing this moment with him,” underlines the father, relieved but tired by the events. Social media echoed this sentiment, with many expressing their anger and disappointment. “5 years of working like an idiot. 18 months planning a family Olympic weekend with 2 little girls who spent their school year and at home on the subject and dreaming of this moment. Everything is ruined in one night,” exclaims Christophe.
Others, even more angry, demand immediate sanctions against the saboteurs. “I have 4 tickets purchased after saving for a long time to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games with my children. If I cannot attend, I no longer answer for anything,” warns Bernard, before specifying: “I would not like to be in the place of those who committed these hacks. They will be found and then will have to reimburse everything themselves (damage to the lines, reimbursement of millions of tickets, etc.).” “For the moment, we still have the hope of being able to attend,” he explains to Le Figaro.
The French railway company SNCF announced on Friday that high-speed trains had been subjected to sabotage hours before the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Agence France-Presse quoted an informed source as saying that the acts of sabotage were “clearly coordinated,” after the company announced that it had been subjected on Thursday night to a “large-scale attack aimed at paralyzing” its high-speed train network. The company said that cables operating high-speed train lines were burned and that acts of 'sabotage' affected 800,000 passengers.
SNCF added that disruptions to high-speed train traffic may continue throughout the weekend at least. Reuters also quoted Eurostar, the company that operates high-speed trains, as saying that flights to and from Paris were canceled and diverted after the sabotage. For his part, French Transport Minister Patrice Fargriat said that the 'coordinated malicious acts' targeted high-speed train lines and would lead to traffic disruption until the end of the week. In anticipation of any security threat, the French authorities mobilized 45,000 police and gendarmerie officers, and 18,000 soldiers, in addition to completely closing the airspace within a 150-kilometre radius around Paris, from 6:30 pm until midnight.
