Eurostar passengers have hit out after being urged not to travel to Paris hours before the Olympic opening ceremony.
Those travelling from Britain to France today will face major delays and huge queues at London St Pancreas station as fans race across the country to arrive in Paris on time.
This is due to vandals targeting Paris’s high-speed rail network with an arson attack.
Several Eurostar trains to Paris have been cancelled and others diverted after the havoc on French high-speed rail lines.
One Eurostar passenger was just going to get on her train anyway
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Speaking outside St Pancreas station one person said: “On the way to Paris, we got a message saying that we should change our train tickets.
“But we’ve come today because we think that we can probably go on the same train again and have about a 60 minute delay on the train.”
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Another person said: “I got a message from the Eurostar asking if we’d like to cancel. Yeah, but we’re not going to.”
GB News reporter Adam Cherry asked her: “So you’re just going to hop on and carry on as usual?” And she said: “I hope so, well, I don’t know. I haven’t gone inside yet.”
A woman wearing a USA jumper said: “We came all the way here to support our team. We’re supposed to go to the opening ceremony.”
Another man said: “Our daughters participating in the Olympics, so we’re trying to get to Paris. She’s a rower. She’s in the women’s double sculls team.”
One Eurostar passenger had already travelled from the USA
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The state-owned railway operator SNCF said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with the country’s west, north and east.
Eurostar said in a statement: “Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday, July 26.
“This extends the journey time by around an hour and a half. Several trains have been cancelled.”
One man was trying to get there to watch his daughter
GB News
There was no indication of whether the action was politically related. The organisers of Paris 2024 said it was working closely with the SNCF to assess the situation.
Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete described the acts as criminal. The Paris police chief said he was beefing up security yet further at the capital’s main stations
.At the Gare de L’Est, traveller Corinne Lecocq said her train to Strasbourg on the border with Germany had been cancelled.
She said: “We’ll take the slow line,…I’m on holiday so it’s OK, even if it is irritating to be late.”