It can be crowded, none too fragrant and noisy. It dives underground and sails majestically across a high bridge over the River Seine near the Eiffel Tower. It is (relatively) cheap, reliable, frequent and beloved of tourists and locals alike. It is the Paris metro, underground or subway.
And yet there is a feeling that the metro network, born with the 20th century and subject to recent modernization, has somehow lost its soul.
Long gone are the days when the seats were made of wooden slats and the odor of garlic-flavored pate engulfed the platform as the doors sprang open at the click of a metal latch. First class carriages are now just a memory.
Gone are the ticket punchers, the public face of the metro, immortalized by the late singer Serge Gainsbourg with his elegy to the "ticket puncher at the Lilas station."
These days the travelers validate their purple tickets or season ticket coupons at automatic turnstiles. There is not even necessarily a driver: the latest line -- which speeds passengers from the St. Lazare railway terminus to the Francois Mitterrand library -- is entirely automatic.
The metro has been the inspiration for filmmakers, is itself sometimes a little treasure trove of art nouveau artefacts or mini-exhibitions and is part of the fabric of the lives and affections of generations of Parisians.
Yet rapid modernization has had a price. People no longer feel entirely safe, especially late at night. Because the homeless use the metro to avoid the cold in winter the number of seats in the stations and in the carriages has been cut, thereby disadvantaging older passengers.
Smoking is prohibited: and the ban is respected in the trains. What happens on the platforms is a different matter altogether.
It is true that there are things happening in the network. Fruit and vegetable sellers set up their stalls in the long corridors at some interchange stations.
Travelers may come across a harpist, or a small orchestra, or a choir as they head for their platforms. Less welcome are those who board the carriages: musicians, puppeteers and an evergrowing number of beggars with a near-identical pitch, which begins with an apology for disturbing the passengers and ends with a request for cash or a restaurant voucher.
Some 30,000 staff, 366 stations, 16 lines, a spider's web of interlinking routes. Seven million passengers a day, most of them coming from the suburbs into the traffic-choked capital. New stations in the city's outskirts and new equipment: the Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) is a major state enterprise.
And one seeking to soften its image, as it has quietened its trains with the introduction on some lines of rubber wheels, abolishing the characteristic screech of the arriving service.
Stations are being closed for renovation: indicator boards tell when the next train is due: on one line little flashing lights on a map show where the train now is. Staff are more visible.
There are even reports that the staff at ticket offices have been told to be more friendly. But some things on the Paris metro will never change.
RSS