'Destabilisation' Arson damage prompts major investigation at start of Games

It was around 1.15am when the SNCF maintenance workers, carrying out repairs by moonlight, spotted the group of people a little further down the railway line by a signal box outside the sleepy village of Vergigny, in the northern French department of Yonne.

- Daniel Boffey

They were concerned enough by the unlikely sight at such an hour to approach the intruders, and then to make a call to the local police as those they had interrupted ran off into the dark.

That sighting, along with the remains of incendiary devices across the French rail network, is set to form a crucial part of the investigation into what was yesterday being described by one Socialist senator as the "destabilisation, sabotage and the calling into question of the image of France" on the eve of the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris.

The arsonists' methods appear to have been crude - setting off fires to destroy the fibre-optic cables at signal boxes by France's high speed rail lines - but the damage has been no less severe for it.

"It's a huge security job, it's meticulous, it's wire by wire that we have to repair all these cables that have been damaged and burned," said Jean-Pierre Farandou, chief executive of SNCF.