Vandals hit multiple telecom lines in France, connectivity affected amid Paris Olympics 2024

Telecom installations belonging to several leading French companies were vandalised late on Sunday night — leading to isolated outages that affected some fixed and mobile services. It was not immediately clear whether the disruption would affect Olympic activities currently underway across the European nation. The development also comes mere days after unidentified arsonists targeted three high-speed train routes hours before the Opening Ceremony and triggered a massive traffic disruption.

“Damages committed in several departments last night affected our telecommunications operators. They have localized consequences on access to fiber, fixed telephony and mobile telephony,” read a social media post by Marina Ferrari – the secretary of state in charge of digital affairs.

A French police official told AP that at least six of the country’s administrative departments were affected — including the region around the Mediterranean city of Marseille which is hosting the Olympic soccer and sailing competitions.

A report by Le Parisien newspaper on Monday morning indicated that cables in electrical cabinets had been cut in southern France. The publication added that installations in the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris had been vandalised, affecting mainly fixed-line services.

Officials associated with telecom operators Bouygues and Free have confirmed that their services were affected.

Meanwhile a spokesman for telecom SFR told Reuters that vandals had made cuts to its long-distance network in five different parts of France in the early hours of Monday. However the impact on clients was minimal because the network was designed to reroute traffic.

Reports quoting police sources however indicated that it was too early to tell if there was any link to sabotage on the high-speed rail network last week. A national investigation is currently underway into the widespread disruption that came hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday and affected nearly a million passengers. 

An update shared by Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said that rail services only finally returned to normal on Monday morning.

(With inputs from agencies)