Gavin Grey: Europe correspondent on France's high speed rail network returning to normal after attack

France’s high speed rail network is expected to be back to normal tomorrow after a co-ordinated attack on the infrastructure occurred before the Olympics Opening Ceremony. It’s estimated 800,000 have been affected. 

And, the UK Government is softening taxpayers up for widespread tax rises. Ministers are set to reveal a treasury audit of public spending pressures inherited by the new government.  

Europe correspondent Gavin Grey tells Ryan Bridge there are claims of a “black hole” worth tens of billions of pounds. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
UK and Europe correspondent. He's with US Live this morning.
Good morning, Devin. Has anyone claimed responsibility for this rilo
tech in France.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
No, not yet and it has of course been something
that has rocked the early part of the Olympics. It
took place on Friday local time, just before the opening
ceremony of the Olympics. Things are getting back to normal slowly.
They hope to run a full service on Monday tomorrow
at our time, but at the moment, one in four

(00:30):
Eurostar trains they're the international services between London and Paris
using a high speed line in Paris, just one in
four of its trains that will not run, so cancelations down,
but still really quite considerable, bearing in mind most of
the trains are absolutely solidly booked up, so that's still
a problem. And the rail company said the main Western

(00:54):
line from Paris was operating, was normal, but three out
of four TGV trains those are the more high be
trained were running on the Northern line from mill with
no delays expected. But still, you know, that's only three
out of four. So rail workers did manage to foil
one attempt to destroy safety equipment on a fourth line,
but three of those high speed lines out of the

(01:16):
capital absolutely paralyzed. They should be all back to normal,
but not the start of the Olympics. They wanted nobody's
see at claim responsibility. Plenty of people pointing the finger
at Russian saboteurs.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, because you would think anyone else would climb responsibility.
Russia is the only one with an interest in not you.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, Hey, are you being softened up for a texts
and crisis in the UK? An you rickon?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I think we might be let me know in twenty
four hours. I'll come back to you, because we are
due to hear from our chancellor, the first female chancellor
in history, Rachel Reeves. She, of course part of the
new government here in the UK that started on the
fourth of July. Now, already they've been saying, oh, well,
we were left a much worse situation than we thought.

(02:00):
Things are not as good as we thought economically, and
they had always in the pre election campaigning said that
they would effectively continue on the same economic spending and
taxing as the preceding government. However, if this report out
tomorrow from the Chancellor reveals what we hear, which is

(02:22):
a massive black hole in the economy, then I think
we are going to see tax rises pretty quickly. It
is rumored by some that the black hole in the
economy could be as much as over forty five billion
New Zealand dollars a year, and of course yes they
can cut back on spending, but then they might be
looking at generally. Perhaps another one could be inheritance tax.

(02:45):
What you inherit when somebody dies and leaves you their money,
and possibly also capital gains, so that is the selling
of an asset and a tax on the growth. Yeah,
it could be bad news.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Could be bad news, could be one of those, all
of those. Kevin, Thanks so much for your time and
good luck.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
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Speaker 1 (03:07):
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