Arson Attacks on French Rail Leave Thousands Stranded

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Arson Attacks on French Rail Leave Thousands Stranded

The usual rhythm of arrivals and departures at Paris’s train stations was replaced by a tense atmosphere of uncertainty on Friday. Hundreds of stranded passengers crowded the concourses, sorting out their plans after several arson attacks disrupted the rail system in France.

“I don’t know when I will be able to escape,” said Ermine Touré at the Gare Montparnasse, a major transportation artery in Paris, three hours after she had hoped to leave Paris for a vacation in Nantes, in western France. “Paris is a mess so I wanted to go today.”

At the Gare Montparnasse, travelers hunched over their phones looking for alternate routes out of the French capital. Children waited atop makeshift seats of suitcases. A slew of announcements played over the loudspeaker system. The words “act of malice” and “vandalism” echoed throughout the hall, doing little to quell the anxiety among travelers.

Some people at the Gare Montparnasse found their way to the rental car kiosks only to confront long lines of others who had the same idea.

At the Gare du Nord train station, about four miles northeast of Gare Montparnasse, Guillaume Du Pontavice stared in frustration at the departure board as each update pushed back his arrival time in Brussels, where he was supposed to surprise the groom at a bachelor party.

“Every two minutes, they add another 10-minute delay,” he said, with his bags on the floor between his legs. “I’d prefer them to tell me straight away that it’s canceled.”

A delayed train from Le Mans, in northwestern France, caused Océane Godemer and her friends to miss their original train to London.

“They got us on the next train for free, and it’s running as usual, so that’s OK,” she said as her friends finished eating breakfast. “But we’re still going to miss our visit to Buckingham Palace.”

The disruptions were also felt in London, where Eurostar, which operates trains to Paris, had delays of as long as 75 minutes. Eurostar said in a statement that it would cancel 25 percent of its trains through Sunday.

At St. Pancras International in London, travelers waited in long lines that stretched throughout the station.

Mary McCarthy, 65, started the day at 4 a.m. in West Cork, Ireland, driving to a nearby airport and flying to London to take the Eurostar to Paris. She was waiting for her daughter to join her and hoping her afternoon train to Paris was still running.

“If we can get there, we’ll be happy,” she said.

Paris was already grappling with the restrictions established by the heightened security measures for the Olympics, with about two dozen Metro stations closed.

“I guess the whole city is collapsing a little bit, so many streets are closed, all this security,” said Sofia Lascurain, whose Eurostar train to Bruges, Belgium, was delayed by at least an hour. “The city feels weird.”

Andrew Das and Dodai Stewart contributed reporting from Paris. Isabella Kwai contributed reporting from London.

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