French police investigate high-speed rail sabotage , carried out hours before the opening of the Paris Olympics, and has requested the assistance of the FBI. Letter signed by "unexpected delegation" and sent by riseup.net, raised suspicions of domestic far-left groups, but does not rule out foreign intervention, reports Reuters.
French police are in talks with their Italian, German and Spanish counterparts as the sabotage may have been coordinated with anarchist groups from abroad. They are looking at the possibility of a link with a similar sabotage of the telecoms network two days later and an incident on the TGV high-speed rail line near Marseille on May 8, the day the Olympic flame arrived in the city.
The investigation also includes former employees of the state rail operator SNCF and other external contractors, although the knowledge needed to carry out the sabotage can easily be found online. According to French authorities, anarchist groups are difficult to penetrate because their members live off the grid and practice strict digital hygiene.
The FBI must issue a subpoena to obtain the data from Riseup.net, but the organization says it actively fights such attempts and does not share user data. The FBI has issued warrants to Riseup in the past, with agents seizing a server used by the organization in 2012, and Riseup reluctantly agreeing to two warrants in 2017 to identify accounts involved in extortion.
French investigators are also looking into a possible link to a hacking attack on the Polish railway system in 2023 that Polish intelligence initially attributed to Russia. In Poland, 14 nationals of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were convicted of spying for Russia after they monitored the transport of weapons to Ukraine through Poland and planned to disrupt it.
France accuses Russia of an organized disinformation campaign to sow chaos ahead of the Olympics. French police arrested a Russian national in July on suspicion of trying to destabilize the Olympics, but no link to the rail sabotage has been established. Russia's Foreign Ministry did not respond to inquiries after the incident, but denies involvement in any sabotage.