They had prepared. The national rail operator SNCF had set up a Paris Olympic Games control center at the Gare de l'Est in Paris to oversee passenger transportation, in cooperation with the five crisis units at Paris stations, all of which had been mobilized. The Environment Ministry, which also oversees transport, had its own operations center on the alert since 6 am, ready to intervene in the event of a problem with the rail, electricity or water networks, together with the major players concerned and the security forces. But none of them had anticipated that a "massive attack" − as the SNCF put it − would affect the rail lines the night before the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

At around 4 am on Friday morning, "a criminal sabotage operation took place, prepared and coordinated with the goal of having a major and widespread impact on the entire TGV network," said the Ministry of Transport. The malicious attacks affected three sites, each strategically located on the high-speed network: at Courtalain, before the junction that takes trains either to Bordeaux or to Brittany; at Croisilles, near Arras, on the northern axis; and at Pagny-sur-Moselle, where the Metz connection is made to the network that also goes to Strasbourg and Germany. The cable boxes were set on fire with gasoline. At the fourth site, Vergigny, located on the southeast axis of the TGV network from Lyon and Marseille, the arrival of SNCF workers caused the saboteurs to flee in a van. An accident may have been prevented.

At 8 am, SNCF sent out a press release advising travelers to avoid stations. It promised free ticket exchanges or refunds. At Gare Montparnasse, the Paris station serving the west of the country, the atmosphere was tense. In addition to the TGV disruption, another incident had occurred: A catenary wire had been ripped out, bringing the local trains on line N between Versailles-Chantiers and Paris to a standstill. The station gradually emptied out.

Of the four trains carrying athletes, three were able to run and the team on board the fourth, which had been canceled, was "repositioned," according to the SNCF. It was not until 5:30 pm that the SNCF announced the new transportation plan. The mobilization of more than 100 railway workers at the sabotaged sites enabled a faster recovery than had been announced by SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou in the morning. On the eastern high-speed line, traffic was expected to resume as normal by 6 am on Saturday. On the system's northern lines, where many trains had been running late since Friday, 80% of journeys were scheduled. On the Brittany and southwest routes, SNCF promised that two-thirds of the trains would be running on Saturday.

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