Anti-terrorist police arrested ten members of a violent, French anarchist movement accused of causing chaos on the country's railways by sabotaging overhead power cables yesterday.

The arrests brought relief to railway executives after days of pandemonium, but fuelled concern over a revival of the extreme left-wing movements which sowed terror in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.

Detectives said that the suspects, aged between 23 and 33, had links to anarchists in Britain, Germany, Belgium, Greece and Italy.

A police source said the groups shared the same extreme, anti-capitalist ideas, but added there was no evidence that they were plotting actions together.

The ten were detained in custody following dawn raids in Paris, Normandy, eastern and central France.

Michele Alliot-Marie, the Interior Minister, said: "These individuals are characterised by a total rejection of any democratic expression of political opinion and an extremely violent tone."

More than 300 police officers and gendarmes had been involved in the search for the saboteurs who stunned French public opinion when they attacked the SNCF, the state railway network whose high speed trains are a source of national pride.

The group fixed the iron bars used in reinforced concrete to power cables above four separate tracks - including the Eurostar line - in northern and central France in the early hours of Saturday.

When sweeper trains were sent out at 5am to checks the lines - a routine procedure to verify the absence of dangerous objects - they clipped the bars and brought down the cables.

A total of 160 of high speed TGV trains were delayed, some for several hours, on a long, bank-holiday weekend which is one of the busiest of the year for the SNCF.

Amid outrage at an attack on one of post-war France's greatest success stories, railways managers revealed that a similar device had been placed on power cables in a separate incident last month.

Officials said the bars had been designed to wreak havoc without causing accidents.

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