French anti-terrorist police have arrested 10 people linked to a left-wing political movement for allegedly sabotaging power cables on high speed TGV train lines, the interior ministry said today.
It said the "anarcho-autonomous" movement that the suspects belonged to had been under surveillance for several months by domestic intelligence services and anti-terrorist police.
"These individuals are characterised by a total rejection of any democratic expression of political opinion and an extremely violent tone," Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told reporters.
"The operation was made possible by the investigation into this movement conducted on my orders over the past months by the DCRI (France's domestic intelligence directorate)," she said.
Severe delays were caused at the weekend when power was cut by metal bars hooked onto several overhead electric cables on TGV lines in the area around Paris.
Some 300 police were involved in the operation leading to the arrests in the Correze region in central France, Rouen, in the north, the Meuse region in the northeast and the Paris area, the ministry said.
"Indications collected on the group allowed us to establish connections between the sites," Ms Alliot-Marie said.
The government and management of France's national rail operator SNCF said on Sunday that the actions, which did not threaten the safety of passengers, appear to have been coordinated acts of sabotage.
The case was formally transferred to anti-terrorist police services yesterday.
Unions rejected suggestions that the saboteurs, who were presumed to have experience working with high tension power cables, may have been current railway employees.
Bernard Aubin, federal secretary of the CFTC Transports union issued a statement expressing "satisfaction and relief for rail workers and their company".
"If the motivation for these acts was political, those responsible chose the worst possible way to express their convictions," he said.
Alliot-Marie said she had been concerned about a resurgence in violence by some far-left groups.
"For the past few years, I have observed a radicalisation in the ultra-left movement," she said.
Reuters