Scores Detained in France for Plotting Olympic Disruptions

According to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, a large number of people have been arrested in France for attempting to obstruct the Olympic Games on Monday. Fifty persons were detained by security police, Darmanin told France 2. According to him, officials forbade them from carrying out "sabotage actions or radical protests" during the inaugural Olympic games.

Le Parisien, a newspaper, announced the arrest of forty-five members of the extreme environmental movement Extinction Rebellion. They had organized protests against the Olympic Games' negative social and environmental effects. An ultra-leftist activist was detained on Sunday in Oissel, which is located roughly 121 kilometers northwest of Paris, according to a story in the newspaper Le Figaro. The individual possessed access keys to the SNCF technical premises, wire cutters, and a set of universal keys when he was apprehended at a French national train or SNCF location. According to the account, the set of universal keys that were in his car were found, along with some ultra-leftist literature.

The investigation into the arson attacks that caused traffic disruptions on Friday, just before the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, affecting hundreds of thousands of travelers, is not unrelated to the arrest, according to the Paris prosecutor's office. Additionally, Darmanin informed France 2 that his office has a more precise image of the potential perpetrators of those acts. “We have identified several profiles of individuals who may have carried out these very deliberate and highly targeted acts of sabotage," he said. According to Darmanin, the attacks follow "a traditional method of the far-left."

Multiple media sites received a letter of responsibility that included references to the radical left-wing scene and criticism of the Olympic Games. Darmanin says we need to investigate if this is real or if people are just attempting to take credit for the deeds. According to Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete, trains are operating normally again on channel RTL. It remained to be seen whether those who supported the offenders were members of the SNCF, Darmanin declared. In several regions of France, unknown individuals also caused damage to fiber-optic networks during the course of the night, although Paris—the site of the current summer Olympics—remained unaffected, according to French media on Monday, according to NAN.