Eight young far-left activists have been arrested and placed under investigation in France after allegedly training with incendiary devices in abandoned railway tunnels in Paris in preparation for a violent action in Italy against the Lyon-Turin high-speed rail project.
The investigation was opened on July 22, 2026, after a referral from the Paris police prefecture. It reported that a group from the far-left milieu was suspected of preparing a violent action during a mobilisation in Italy against the Lyon-Turin railway project scheduled for July 24-26.
The eight main suspects were arrested simultaneously on July 23, before they could travel to Italy. The prosecutor’s office said they had met on several occasions to train.
They were placed under formal investigation on July 27 on charges including criminal conspiracy, the organised possession and transportation of incendiary or explosive materials, and refusing to hand over telephone access codes.
The Paris prosecutor’s office sought pre-trial detention, which the investigating judge did not order. It appealed, and on August 12 the Paris investigating chamber confirmed that the suspects could remain free under judicial supervision.
The group consists of six men and two women, aged between 19 and 28. Most are described as politically active students, and French authorities identify them as part of the country’s far-left milieu.
According to Le Journal du Dimanche, investigators consider the group close to Que la fac (QLF), an autonomous far-left student collective active in universities in Paris and other French cities, a characterisation contested by the suspects’ lawyers.
Investigators focused on tunnels of the Petite Ceinture, the disused railway ring around Paris, which the prosecutor’s office said had served as places of gathering and training. Officers recovered cable ties and empty plastic bottles, some damaged and some fitted with tissues.
A search of one suspect’s home uncovered 21 fireworks mortars, while investigators also recorded the use of telephones dedicated to the group’s activities.
Several members had already been identified at an earlier protest against the Seine-Nord canal project, at which pyrotechnic devices were fired towards police, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Aïnoha Pascual, lawyer for one of the suspects, told France Inter on August 13 that the legal classification appeared entirely disproportionate.
The Lyon-Turin railway, known in Italy as the TAV, from treno ad alta velocità, or high-speed train, is a major cross-border rail project connecting France and Italy through the Alps. Its centrepiece, the 57.5km Mont Cenis base tunnel, is scheduled to open in 2033.
Construction is already under way, particularly on the Italian side, where major excavation works began at Chiomonte in 2023. The cross-border section is costed at about €11.1 billion, of which the European Union funds 40 per cent.
The alleged destination of the French group was the Alta Felicità festival, held from July 24 to 26 in Venaus, in the Susa valley in Piedmont, northwest Italy. Closely associated with the No TAV movement, the free festival staged its tenth edition and combines concerts, political debates and activism, drawing activists from Italy and abroad.
The event culminated in a march towards the construction sites on July 25, which organisers said drew about 20,000 people. About 500 protesters broke away and clashed with police at San Didero and, above all, at Chiomonte, where some cut through fencing, entered the site and set fire to at least two Carabinieri vehicles.
Italian interior minister Matteo Piantedosi said afterwards that some of those present had wanted an escalation.
The investigation remains ongoing. None of the eight suspects has been convicted, and the case remains before the French courts.
