Eurostar services between London and Paris were delayed on Thursday morning (12 November) after a bomb alert at Calais-Fréthun station in northern France.
The Pas-de-Calais prefecture said on X at about 9.40am local time that a bomb alert was under way at the station and that checks were being carried out, warning of possible disruption to nearby traffic.
Eurostar said trains could not pass through Calais-Fréthun at the request of the French authorities, causing delays to some services to and from London. Eurostar trains have not stopped at the station since March 2020, but its high-speed services run through it on their way to and from the Channel Tunnel.
French reports said rail traffic was suspended in both directions between Calais and Boulogne after an unattended bag was reported at the station, with services expected to resume later in the morning. Passengers are being advised to check with Eurostar and SNCF before travelling.
#Sécurité #Circulation ⚠️ Une alerte à la bombe est actuellement en cours en gare de Calais-Fréthun. La levée de doute est en cours. Celle-ci risque d'avoir un impact sur le trafic alentour. Soyez prudents. Restez informés sur tout éventuelle évolution de la situation sur les réseaux sociaux de @GroupeSNCF.
— Préfet Pas-de-Calais 🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@Prefet62) November 12, 2026
The alert follows more than a week of bomb threats across Europe. On Wednesday, around 6,300 schools in Italy, about 1,000 in Scotland and more than 300 in Northern Ireland were sent hoax bomb emails. The week before, threats against airlines forced searches and diversions on dozens of flights. It is not yet known whether the Calais alert is linked to any of these.
Read next: Europe's wave of aviation bomb hoaxes puts war risk and terrorism cover in focus
For insurers, each scare raises the same awkward question. A security alert that turns out to be nothing causes delays and missed connections without any damage, and many policies are not built to respond to that. Whether a delayed Eurostar passenger can claim depends on the travel disruption cover they bought. Some travel policies exclude threats of terrorism as well as actual attacks, as Insurance Business found when hoax threats disrupted flights last week.
