France descends into chaos on the Olympics’ opening day

France’s Olympics could not have got off to a worse start. Hundreds of thousands of train passengers have been left stranded after the country’s high-speed rail lines were targeted by a series of suspicious fires. Rail company SNCF says it’s a ‘massive attack aimed at paralysing the network’, with security services suggesting this morning that the far left may have been behind the attack. Whoever is to blame, one thing is clear: France’s president Emmanuel Macron will be furious. The world’s eyes are on Paris tonight as the opening ceremony gets underway. Macron wanted them to see France at its best; instead, they will see a country in chaos.

The man behind tonight’s opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics is Thomas Jolly. True to his surname, the theatre director promises a stunning show that will surprise and thrill. Above all, the ceremony will be a ‘celebration of cultural, linguistic, religious and sexual diversity in France’.