After fiber optic sabotage deprived several thousand French people of the network on Wednesday April 27, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation.
The Paris prosecutor’s office announced the opening of a criminal investigation after the discovery of vandalized internet cables on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday April 27. The cyber section of the prosecution, in charge of the case, opened the investigation to “damage to property likely to harm the fundamental interests of the Nation”, “obstructing an automated data processing system” and “conspiracy”.
According to a source quoted by AFP, the investigations were entrusted to the DGSI, internal intelligence, and to the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ). “These kinds of incidents of this magnitude never happen”said this source. “It’s the first time, and we don’t know who it is, for the moment”.
“This is an attack on an unprecedented scale.for his part commented Michel Combot, general manager of the FFT (French Telecoms Federation). All the operators lodged a complaint and filed a civil action..
As a reminder, several fiber optic cables were severed during the night around 3:20 a.m., 3:40 a.m. and 5:20 a.m., leading to runaway connection failures across the country. These sabotaged cables in Seine-et-Marne, Essonne and Meuse disrupted connections to Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Reims and Strasbourg, particularly affecting the customers of the operator Free and to a lesser extent those of SFR.
The connections were restored on Wednesday 27 April.