French Police Looking at Sabotage As Possible Cause for Friday’s Normandy Train Derailment

The commuter trains that run between the Normandy cities of Rouen and Caen – every weekday there are 10 of these scheduled, with six on weekends – are quite a popular transport mode and considered one of Normandy’s ‘principal rail corridors.’ The 186 passengers on Friday’s evening trip were no doubt just settled in for the familiar and comfortable commute home when the unthinkable happened.

I can’t imagine the sheer terror as a few wild jolts suddenly turned into shattered windows, stones from the track itself rocketing inside, and, in one car, literally the world turning upside down as it rolled off the track onto its side.

…One passenger, 24-year-old Louis, described how the journey suddenly turned violent as the train began shaking.

“Suddenly there were a few jolts, and then after about three seconds it got stronger and stronger,” he told ICINormandie radio.

“I couldn’t stay in my seat any more. The windows partially shattered, the stones from the track came into thecarriage. It was really shocking. I’m still shaking.”

Emergency crews raced to the scene and found 44 injured people to various degrees, with one teenager seriously injured. Everyone was horribly shaken up.

…At least 44 people were injured, including an 18-year-old woman who is in critical condition, when the train came off the tracks near Cléon in Normandy on Friday evening.

…Philippe Tabarot, the French transport minister, said that 140 firefighters and other emergency teams were deployed to the crash scene as the local authorities activated a mass-casualty response

The aforementioned teenager was airlifted by helicopter to Rouen University Hospital, while the uninjured passengers were taken to Cléon Town Hall.

Melanie Delacour, the Cleon mayor, said the victims were “in a state of shock.”

“The windows of the carriages that remained upright shattered, and because of the train’s speed, stones flew into the carriages,” she said.

She said that some victims had said they would never take the train again.

The impact that caused the derailment was so violent that it knocked four cars off the tracks, dumped another on its side, and literally spun the locomotive around to face the opposite direction.

…The train, which had 186 passengers on board, was travelling between the towns of Rouen and Caen in Normandy when it derailed at 7.45pm on Friday.

During the derailment, one carriage tipped onto its side while four others left the tracks.

…“The locomotive flipped over, meaning the end that had been heading towards Caen ended up facing Rouen, such was the force of the impact.”

What was so puzzling to railroad officials on the scene was that another commuter train had just come through on that track a little over an hour before with no issues. Had driver caused this?

Well, he tested negative for drugs.

The answer appeared to lie on the tracks in what classic European understatement sounds like not much of anything – a ‘fragment of rail found on the track’ said the national French channel.

Like, something that just chipped off a rail as a train went by or something, right?

…A fragment of rail was found on the track, with the possibility of a malicious act being treated as the main line of inquiry as a result, the source said.

The Telegraph used the same verbiage for the fragment lying across the track.

…One carriage overturned, and four derailed after hitting an unidentified object, BFMTV, the French TV station, reported.

Officials said a fragment of rail had been found on the track and that the main line of inquiry was focused on the incident having been a malicious act.

“The reasons for its presence are unknown and will have to be determined by the investigation,” Sebastien Gallois, a prosecutor said.

It remained a mystery until I found the video below, and they interviewed a local police official.

The ‘fragment’ is suspicious because it weighed 300 kilos.

EXCUSEZ-MOI?!

In American, that’s just a shade over 660 pounds – nope, it didn’t just get accidentally knocked onto the track by the earlier train.

It wasn’t lying across the track at that weight. It had obviously been laid across, with malicious intent.

And, no – one person couldn’t have put it there.

The public prosecutor in Rouen, however, begged to differ with all the suspicions about how a 660-pound section of rail made its way prone across a busy commuter track all on its own.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE AND, CERTAINMENT, NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT

…said Inspector Clouseau.

…The public prosecutor of Rouen, Sebastian Gallois, said Saturday evening that there was “no indication of a malicious act carried out with the deliberate intention of derailing the train, and certainly not of an attack,” according to reports in the French media.

Gallois’ remarks came after some politicians had suggested earlier on Saturday that the incident might have been the result of sabotage or other criminal activity.

Gallois’s being very cautious, as authorities tend to do. And no doubt because he also doesn’t want to be responsible for reminding people what the European Left is capable of when they start targeting infrastructure and start a panic.

Thankfully, the young lady who was critically injured is out of danger.

…A spokeswoman for the French national police communications service, known as SICOP, said that the piece of rail found on the track was “probably” linked to the derailment. She spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to be publicly named in line with police policy.

“At this stage, the leading theory is that a piece of rail was present on one of the tracks, potentially causing the derailment. The reason for its presence is unknown,” said prosecutor Sébastien Gallois in a press release.

“The train’s ‘black box’ has been seized. Several interviews are scheduled, and a court-appointed expert has been called in. The main victim is still in hospital but her life is no longer in danger. The other victims have received care and treatment; they have either been discharged or are about to be.”

Investigators were working to establish whether the circumstances were accidental or involved sabotage, the service said. The prosecutor’s office remained cautious about drawing conclusions, according to the police.

It IS the radical Left’s specialty, as they annoyingly proved on opening day of the Paris Olympics, for one example. Only through miracles of vigilance did French authorities prevent a worse commuter disaster by finding the rail and line damage before anyone was injured or killed.

The other day, a younger fellow American acquaintance lamented to me the fact the U.S. doesn’t have a high-speed rail system connecting its wide expanses in lieu of car culture.

I told her it would last about a day before the terrorism started.

— Greggory Wroblewski, Ph.D. (@greggory_3) July 26, 2024

…The arson attacks have brought France to a standstill on the opening day of the Paris #OlympicGames.

You’ll also notice what is never said when these sorts of infrastructure terrorist attacks are suspected or proven – their origin.

Europe’s far-left terrorists are the ‘They who shall not be named‘ Voldemorts of Europe, and they have been rampaging on and off at various levels for literally decades.

Hundreds of thousands will take to the streets in protest over a ‘far-Right’ political party that has been legitimately elected by their fellow citizens and not lifted a physical finger against anyone, and yet not a soul takes to the streets when their power plants are attacked, and old ladies freeze to death because of it. Or people are grievously hurt when the trains they all use become potential death traps.

I don’t understand the reticence unless it’s an ingrained fear of what the rabid Left is capable of, and no one wants to be the person whose car blows up in the morning.

So, here Rouen is. The rail lines are closed until the prosecutor’s office satisfies itself, and the railroad is trying to provide enough buses for everyone who used to take one of those 10 daily trains.

…On the Rouen-Caen line, which usually sees 10 return services per day and six at weekends, a replacement bus service has been set up, SNCF Voyageurs said.

According to the spokesperson, the train will only be lifted off the line once the public prosecutor allows it, with investigations into the cause of the derailment still ongoing.

SNCF insisted that it would offer “full cooperation in complete transparency” to the inquiry.

Ebola* was moving from England back to Germany this weekend and sent me a picture of his fill-up in Cologne. What it cost him for three-quarters of a tank might give you an idea of why taking the train is so appealing to your average European.

Baby boy filled up his Jeep outside of Cologne, Germany.

Three-quarters of a tank for $194 and change.

€2.76 a LITER, $12.10 a gallon pic.twitter.com/W760e1dSr2

— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) September 12, 2026

As far as the investigation goes, we’ll just have to wait to see what they find, and whether they announce it when they find it.

And I wouldn’t expect to hear warnings about ‘far-Left extremism’ in any event.

It’s just not done.

* Our son was one of the very first computer and gaming savants in the early 90s, winning tournaments and designing “skins” for games not long after Al Gore invented the innerwebs. Unfortunately, he also had a knack for catching the first viruses. One was so virulent that it wiped his computer and all of my work and required one of his father’s computer geeks to come from base with a DoD program to finally exterminate it. His uncle Bingley nicknamed him “Ebola,” and it has been his nom-de-innerwebs ever since.