THE WORLD UNDER PARIS

METRO/BOULOT/DODO: METRO, JOB, SLEEP.

In the 1938 film Algiers, Hedy Lamarr, a beautiful tourist in that north African city, flirts with gangster Charles Boyer, doomed to remain a fugitive inside the Casbah, its native quarter, or die in the streets outside.

“Do you know what you remind me of?” he tells her. “The Métro. You’re all silk, and you jingle when you walk, and yet with all that chi chi  you make me think of the Métro. Isn’t that funny? And frites, and coffee on the boulevard. “

London calls it the Tube, Berlin the U-bahn, New York the Subway, but Paris was the first to call its underground railroad the Métro, a name other capitals, from Moscow to Shanghai and Washington DC have been content to copy.

And why not? Though Moscow’s stations are more palatial and New York’s IRT has inspired some cultural gems, notably Duke Ellington’s Take the ‘A’ Train,  no other system of rapid transit has accumulated such a treasury of romance. Nor, to exiles, is any sound more evocative of Paris than that squeal of its wheels as it takes a bend and the murmur of the air driven before it as it approaches a station.

Paris’s Métropolitan breathes a perfume like no other. The perfume,  in fact, is real. Called Madeleine, this cocktail of vanilla, jasmine, lily, citrus and rose has been sprayed onto platforms, staircases and ticket halls since 1998 at the rate of 1.5 tons a month. An earlier scent, Francine,  used natural plant extracts,  but essences of eucalyptus, lavender and mint were no match for the effluvia of a working city, particularly when augmented pungently by the homeless who hide out there by night.

 The Métro embraced eccentricity from the moment it opened in 1900. Hector Guimard’s art nouveau  station entrances set the tone.  Opponents compared his plant-like columns, each topped with a bulbous lamp, to moon-dwellers looming over cowering commuters. But his use of pre-fabricated cast-iron made the system cheap as well as distinctive, so the city fathers, grumbling, gave in, and his porticos of verdigris-green metal and frosted glass were soon unforgettably associated with Paris.

Periodic updates make the Métro a “work in progress.”  Over the years, many stations have been re-designed , with varying degrees of success.  Jules Verne inspired  the décor at Arts et Métiers, the station closest to the museum of technology. Copper-coloured metal sheathes the walls, evoking Captain Nemo’s submarine, the Nautilus, from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 At Louvre-Rivoli, Egyptian statuary and antique porcelain remind passengers of the riches just overhead.  Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker  and his statue of Honoré de Balzac greet passengers alighting at Varenne for the nearby Musée Rodin.  The tiles lining Concorde station spell out the text of the Declaration of the Rights of Man,  within sight of where King Louis XVI and his family were guillotined.             

At one time, the Métro was over-run with fonctionnaires  of its management body,  the Régie autonome des transports parisiens , alias RATP.  A humourless individual would sell you a ticket at the guichet, another clip it as you descended to the platform,  where more of them watched closely in case you tried to squeeze past the electric gate that swung shut each time a blaring hoot announced the arrival of a train. In 1959, Serge Gainsbourg had a hit with his doleful  Le Poinçonneur des Lilas (The Ticket Clipper of the Closerie des Lilas).  Complaining of being “the man you meet but don’t look at,” he bemoans the tedium of a day spent under a “ceramic sky,” punching tickets.  Sneaking a few pages of Reader’s Digest  between trains, he dreams of a boat cruising into the platform and carrying him away to Miami.  

Traditionally, the RATP aimed to replicate in the Métro the culture that existed above ground, including its social distinctions. It even had first and second class cars. (The famously elegant but chronically broke Marquis Boni de Castellane always travelled by second,  “since” he explained,  “in first class I risk meeting my creditors.” ) Despite an outcry from  RATP, which charged 50% extra for first class tickets, and from seniors and the handicapped, who paid it to be sure of a seat in its half-empty cars, first class was discontinued in 1981 by Charles Fiterman, Minister of Transport under Francois Mitterrand. A Communist, he was proud to strike even this small blow for equality.

With the abolition of first class cars, the Métro began to change. Electric barriers were dismantled. Ticket machines appeared, followed by the electronic card.  For almost every Parisian, the working day began underground. Commuters described their lives as “Métro, boulot,dodo”  - Métro, Job, Sleep.

Staff also dwindled,  until the system appeared to run itself. These days, there’s seldom anyone behind the guichet. At platform level, glass barriers open and close automatically, guiding us into spotless modern cars. Their drivers’ cabins are empty. These trains have minds of their own – or no minds at all.

There is hope, however.  In 2006, RATP launched a new slogan and logo. The catch-line was Aimer la ville : Love the city. The logo featured a line resembling the route of the Seine as it flowed through Paris. It suggested the profile of a woman’s face, upraised as for a kiss. Though the new Métro may have no brain,  it still possesses  a heart.