PARIS — France’s high-speed train network, crippled by eight days of strikes, fell victim to dangerous sabotage Wednesday just as long-awaited talks got started and rail workers in town after town voted to return to the job.
Most train drivers remained on strike, however, meaning a ninth day of hard traveling was in store for anyone planning a train trip today. There were slight improvements to the Paris subway system, but not enough to avoid long delays.
The announcement by the SNCF train authority that cables had been set afire and the signal system tampered with on high-speed lines east, west, north and south of Paris in a “coordinated action of sabotage” drew a raft of condemnation.
The vandalism further delayed trains that were running up to three hours behind schedule.
“When the line has been crossed, it must be denounced,” said President Nicolas Sarkozy, who ordered officials to “energetically” seek out the culprits. Transit unions denied any role in the sabotage.
Sarkozy’s plan to end special retirement benefits for rail and other categories of workers triggered the strikes.
Sarkozy emerged from a long, uncharacteristic silence Tuesday to speak out against the strikes for holding transport users “hostage” and made clear he would not back down on the retirement plan — an opening salvo in his broader program of economic, political and social change.
The president, a conservative who took office in May, appears to have the upper hand in the standoff, his first major tangle with France’s powerful unions. ap polls suggest an overwhelming majority of the French public disapproves of the walkouts.
Meanwhile, a day after many of the nation’s civil servants held a one-day walkout, they demanded on Wednesday the opening of talks on pay hikes before Nov. 30, threatening to increase their movement if they are not heard, the chief of a union federation, Gerard Aschieri, said.
And students angry over a law that made changes in universities to make them more competitive were to march in Paris today.
Until now, it was the rail strikes alone that captured government attention.
The first round of union talks with the SNCF, which oversees the national rail system, and RATP, the Paris region public transport system, went ahead Wednesday but bore little fruit.
