(26 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PART MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris – 26 July 2024
1. Soldiers patrolling in front of Gare Montparnasse train station ++MUTE++
2. Wide of station exterior ++MUTE++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Franck Dubourdieu, SNCF director of the TGV Atlantic line:
“We on the Atlantic coast we operate 250 trains a day. We had four trains with athletes and two of them were able to operate, one was cancelled, and one is under process to be operated. So the impact on the opening ceremony is very, very few.”
4. Dubourdieu speaking to media
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Franck Dubourdieu, SNCF director of the TGV Atlantic line:
“We had to face a coordinated attack this morning on the French railway. Several points were attacked, and one specifically on the Atlantic coast. The fact is that because of this issue we are not able to run the full schedule. And now we have one train over three able to operate on the Atlantic coast.All the trains are operating normally with roughly 1 to 2 hours delay on the east of France, and for the north off France some trains were cancelled but roughly the other trains are operating with one-hour delay.”
6. Soldier standing outside Gare Montparnasse station ++MUTE++
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Franck Dubourdieu, SNCF director of the TGV Atlantic line:
“So we have 30,000 kilometres of railway in France, so it’s a very long network. It’s absolutely impossible to check all the points. What we are doing currently is some specific tours organized by experts on very targeted areas. And we have been helped also with 50 drones which have been provided to us to control the most that we can those specific areas. So we are reinforcing our system to be able to cope with the situation."
8. Exteriors of train station
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Franck Dubourdieu, SNCF director of the TGV Atlantic line:
“For us it’s really a pity. It’s difficult to accept also because obviously we were working for months to make sure that everything was going to happen properly, and today… it’s hard to accept. Thank you.”
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
The head of France’s high-speed trains running on the Atlantic coast said that several trains carrying athletes for the Olympic Games were among those affected by the attacks earlier on Friday.
Franck Dubourdieu, director of the TGV Atlantic line of the French railway operator SNCF said that four of their trains had Olympic athletes on board.
While two were able to run, one was cancelled while another was "in the process" to run.
Dubourdieu said about 250 trains run daily in that part of France.
"We had to face a coordinated attack this morning on the French railway. Several points were attacked, and one specifically on the Atlantic coast," he told reporters outside the Gare Montparnasse train station, one of the main stations affected by the attacks in Paris.
He added that trains in various parts of France are operating with delays that vary between one to two hours.
Dubourdieu said that an investigation is now ongoing, and experts are checking the lines and the areas of the attack also using drones.
Despite months of preparations he said this incident remains difficult to accept.
"For us it’s really a pity. It’s difficult to accept (it) also because obviously we were working for months to make sure that everything was going to happen properly, and today… it’s hard to accept," he told reporters.
AP Video shot by Andrea Rosa
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