General
Man Detained in France After Breaking Into Railway Site Near Rouen
The man was picked up days after arsonists caused travel chaos by damaging train signaling cables around France, but he is not a suspect in that case, prosecutors say.
A man in his 20s was detained in northern France after he broke into a railway site, French authorities said on Monday, as police continue to search for arsonists who sabotaged train signaling cables last week, causing travel chaos ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
The Paris prosecutor’s office, which is handling the investigation into those arson attacks, said that the man who was taken into custody is not a suspect in those incidents.
Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, identified the man as an “ultraleft” activist, but did not give his name. He was detained on Sunday at a site belonging to France’s national railway company, the S.N.C.F., near the city of Rouen, authorities said.
French security and transportation authorities had tightened their monitoring of the transportation network after last week’s sabotage, in which arsonists cut and set fire to crucial cables at three separate signaling stations around the country.
Mr. Darmanin cautioned that it was too early to say what had motivated the attacks but said that the arson last week was the “traditional method of action” of anarchist or anticapitalist, far-left fringe groups. Those groups generally oppose the French state and see the railway network as one of its symbols.
“What has really interested and worried us is that these are extremely specific locations used for communication,” Mr. Darmanin told France 2 television on Monday. “Clearly it was extremely well-targeted, it was not done randomly.”
