PARIS (AP) — The head of the French national rail service says that train marshals, armed and allowed to use their weapons, will be patrolling some passenger trains, one of a series of new security measures.
Guillaume Pepy said on iTele TV on Sunday that the marshals will be in civilian dress, chosen from the SNCF train authority’s 3,000 security agents and trained for the task.
Among other measures, a team of profilers will survey some of the 40,000 train station cameras for suspicious behavior, and security portals in some stations will add arms and explosives detection.
The November Paris attacks added to security concerns already prevalent after a radical tried to carry out an attack on a train last August that was aborted by three American travelers.
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I’ll be riding a French train in June and July. Here’s hoping the agents are well trained. When traveling thru France two years ago I noted armed members of what appeared to be the French army patrolling train stations.