Watch: Olympics travel chaos as vandals target high-speed rail tracks

Watch from Paris on Friday 26 July after vandals targeted France’s high-speed train network with a series of coordinated actions that brought major disruption to some of the country’s busiest rail lines ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony.

The state-owned railway operator said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in west and Strasbourg in the east.

It urged all travellers to postpone their journeys.

Repairs were underway but traffic is expected to be severely disrupted until at least the end of the weekend, and trains were being sent back to their points of departure.

“Last night, the SNCF was victim of several acts of vandalism on the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines. Fires were deliberately set to damage our installations,” the SNCF said in a statement.

The coordinated strikes on the rail network will feed into a sense of apprehension ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony in the heart of Paris later on Friday.

France is rolling out an unprecedented peacetime security operation to secure the event, with more than 45,000 police, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 private security agents deployed.

Eurostar has also said services between London and Paris were being diverted, with some trains cancelled and journey times increased.