France suffers second day of sabotage train delays

Paris: Tens of thousands of rail passengers struggled through a second day of cancelled trains Saturday as investigators tracked saboteurs who paralys...

Paris: Tens of thousands of rail passengers struggled through a second day of cancelled trains Saturday as investigators tracked saboteurs who paralysed the network just ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

The SNCF rail company chief Jean-Pierre Farandou said services would be back to normal by Monday. But deputy transport minister authorities acknowledged that 160,000 of the 800,000 people due to travel this weekend still faced cancellations.

Nearly one third of trains were cancelled in northern, western and eastern France. About a quarter of Eurostar high speed trains between London and Paris also failed to leave.

No claim of responsibility has been made for the meticulously planned night-time attacks on cabling boxes at junctions north, southwest and east of the French capital, just ahead of Friday's Olympics opening ceremony in Paris. Maintenance workers thwarted a fourth attack.

But Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the investigation was progressing.