A regional train carrying 186 passengers derailed in northwestern France Friday evening, injuring 44 people — including a young woman critically (although she is expected to survive). A metal object was found on the track following the disaster.

Officials suspect it wasn’t an accident.

French law enforcement wants to know what the object was, and just what the heck it was doing there.

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

"The reasons for its presence are unknown and will have to be determined by the investigation," Rouen prosecutor Sebastien Gallois said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Saboteurs, anarchists and terrorists have been attracted to European trains for over a century because they’re vulnerable and even minor disruptions in their operations can quickly slow down the entire network. While terrorists more often turn to bombs to inflict mass casualties, like the jihadist 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 193 people, derailments, cut cables, and efforts to interfere with regular operations are usually aimed by extremist groups at disruption and political signaling.

That being said, an 18-year-old woman was airlifted to the hospital after this crash, so if it does turn out to be sabotage, the perpetrators did more than just disrupt a commuting schedule.

Recommended
Firestorm Ignited Over Proposed US Census Rules. Here Is What Citizens Can Do About It. Dennis Santiago Iran's Economy Hits a New Crippling Low - Regime Faces New Problems With People Rising Up Nick Arama

Whether it was just an accident or a deliberate attack will be determined as the investigations continue, but in either case, it was a traumatic event for those on board:

Cleon Mayor Melanie Delacour 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 told AFP.

NOTE: The crash occurred in northwest France, not southwest as the above tweet mistakenly claims.

Attacks on the French train system have a long and storied history, starting with the 1910–11 railway strike, where strikers made thousands of attempts at sabotage, and continuing when the Resistance systematically attacked Nazi transports after they’d taken over France during World War II. They have continued through periods of political unrest in the decades since. In 2024, just before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, extremists burned signaling and fiber-optic cables for multiple high-speed lines.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded, and while the far-left was suspected, no one was ever fingered for the crime.

This latest case has all the earmarks of an attack — a metal object that presumably couldn’t have gotten there by itself — but until the authorities finish their investigation, it would be merely speculation to say definitely that it was purposeful.

We should know soon enough.