(Bloomberg) -- A number of fiber optic cables carrying broadband service across France were cut overnight in the latest attack on the country’s infrastructure during the Olympic Games.
Connections serving Paris, which is hosting the Olympic Games this week, and the games themselves weren’t affected, a spokesman for Olympics telecom partner, Orange SA, said. Still, this is the second sabotage of French infrastructure in the past few days as the world converges on the capital. Coordinated fires on French rail lines disrupted trains ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday.
The fiber cables were cut in nine departments overall including: Ardèche, Aude, Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, Hérault, Vaucluse, Marne, Meuse and Oise, the French Telecom Federation said. SFR said its network was vandalized between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Paris time, and teams are working on repairs, a spokesman for the French phone company said. The carrier is using alternative routes to serve customers, though redirecting the traffic might lead to slower speeds.
Other carriers, including Iliad SA’s Free and Netalis, also said they were impacted in social media posts. Netalis Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Guillaume said that the telecom company had successfully moved traffic to backup networks early on Monday. French cloud provider OVHcloud is also working to reroute traffic after the incident, which had caused slower performance on connections between Europe and Asia Pacific, a spokesman said.
A representative for the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office said it is analyzing the situation with regional counterparts and could lead any investigation. Agence France-Presse reported the fiber damage earlier, citing a police source.
In the lead-up to the Olympics, France has been on high alert for potential sabotage or violence targeting the games. Train services have returned to normal after the rail attacks last week disrupted travelers, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said in an interview on France 2 television on Monday.
“We advocate for France reinforcing criminal sanctions for vandalism on telecom infrastructure, which should be put at the same level as vandalism on energy infrastructure,” said Romain Bonenfant, head of the French Telecom Federation industry group, in an interview. “Telecom infrastructure, like the railways, covers kilometers across the whole territory — you can’t put surveillance on every part of it.”
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office is also investigating the rail attacks from last week. In Paris, about 45,000 police and military officials patrolled barriers set up around the Seine ahead of the opening ceremony, which was centered on the river. Video cameras around the city are using a controversial artificial intelligence technology to analyze potential threats from the public in real time.
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A similar incident in 2022 led to a criminal investigation after long-distance cables connecting areas of Paris to Lyon, Strasbourg and Lille were cut in several places, causing internet outages. Representatives for the Prosecutor’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the status of that investigation.
(Updates with additional information from the French Telecom Federation from the third paragraph)
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