Armed guards on French trains

FRANCE is introducing undercover armed marshals on its trains to protect passengers, it emerged yesterday.

The guards, who will wear civilian clothes so as not to attract attention, are to patrol some passenger trains in the wake of terror attacks in both Paris and Brussels.

Security has been heightened across Europe after Islamic State militants killed 130 people in Paris in November, followed by 32 in Brussels last month.

And in August last year, a heavily armed gunman opened fire on a high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris.

Fatalities were only avoided because three Americans – two of whom were offduty servicemen – and a British businessman managed to overpower the suspect, a 26-year-old Moroccan national.

Guillaume Pepy, president of France’s state-owned rail authority SNCF, said yesterday that the armed marshals would be chosen from its 3,000 existing security staff and given special training.

Meanwhile Brussels airport, which reopened yesterday for three ‘symbolic’ flights after the bombings on March 22, has introduced strict additional security checks.