Vandals have targeted France’s telecom network, causing isolated outages across the nation.
Following the attacks during the night, some landline and mobile services were impacted, according to a post made by Marina Ferrari, junior minister for digital matters, on social media platform X. “I condemn in the strongest terms these cowardly and irresponsible acts,” she wrote.
“Thank you to the teams mobilised this morning to carry out repairs and restore damaged sites to service.”
French media reports on Monday said telecom installations belonging to companies SFR and Bouygues Telecom had been vandalised, affecting mainly fixed-line services.
The reports in Le Parisien newspaper and BFM TV said cables in electrical cabinets had been cut in southern France, and that installations in the Meuse region near Luxembourg and the Oise area near Paris had also been targeted.
It comes as a far-left activist has been arrested in connection with a series of attacks on the country’s high-speed train network which caused travel chaos ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed media reports of an arrest being made on Sunday in Seine-Maritime, Normandy.
“We have identified the profiles of several people,” he told France 2 TV, adding the sabotage bore the hallmarks of far-left groups.
