CLEON: French investigators suspect sabotage was behind a train derailment in northwestern France that injured 44 people and left passengers in “a state of shock”, prosecutors said on Saturday, after a massive section of rail was found on the track.
The rail fragment was estimated to weigh between 250 and 300 kilograms, and the possibility of a malicious act was being treated as the main line of inquiry. “The reasons for its presence are unknown and will have to be determined by the investigation,” said prosecutor Sebastien Gallois.
Carrying 186 passengers, the train was running between the Normandy cities of Rouen and Caen when it came off the rails around 7:45pm close to Renault’s factory in the town of Cleon.
During the derailment, one carriage tipped onto its side while four others left the tracks. “The most likely scenario at this stage is that this was not simply a malicious act, but one that can be described as criminal,” said Herve Morin, president of the Normandy region.
“The locomotive flipped over, meaning the end that had been heading towards Caen ended up facing Rouen, such was the force of the impact.” The section of rail did not “just end up on the tracks like that, given that a train had passed an hour earlier and no maintenance work had been carried out in the meantime”, he said.
The maximum speed on that stretch of track was 120 kilometres per hour, Morin added.
Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2026
