“Traffic will be interrupted for the whole day, until the end of service. A dozen SNCF Réseau agents are at work to repair as quickly as possible,” said a spokesperson for the company.

"The SNCF Réseau teams are continuing to establish the diagnosis. We invite you to postpone your trip", writes the SNCF on its web page dedicated to traffic information.

The SNCF had reported earlier in the morning of a "malicious act" in a signal box and an "arson on electric cables", which caused the total interruption early Tuesday morning - at the start and on arrival - TGV and TER traffic, as well as the P line of the Transilien.

“Around 3:00 a.m., a cage containing the electrical wiring of the SNCF traffic signs was opened and set on fire. An SNCF agent called the police around 4:30 a.m.,” a police source told AFP.

“It is a malicious act which is at the origin of this breakdown. I regret the impact for many people who take transport this morning”, declared for his part the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune on FranceInfo.

"Unfortunately we regularly have malicious acts on the cables, on the tracks to take a little material that has a little value, so these acts must obviously be severely punished because we see the impacts they have on daily life,” he added.

The Line P Twitter page reports "an act of vandalism, fire on electrical cables in a technical room in the Vaires sector" in Seine-et-Marne, and publishes a photo of charred cables.

On the station's departures display panels - which appear in real time on its website - the TGV and TER departing for Nancy, Colmar, Frankfurt, Epernay or even Reims are indicated as "delayed" or "cancelled".

For those whose departure is scheduled after 10 a.m., some are still registered for the moment in green with the mention "on time", others are already announced as "deleted".

According to SNCF figures from 2019, some 41 million travelers pass through the Gare de l'Est each year, which is one of the six major Parisian stations.

It serves the Grand Est of France, as well as international destinations such as Germany and Luxembourg.

© 2023 AFP