Chronicle Transport Podcast Podcast

Subway ticket, double sided

Riddle: I am Parisian, I weigh 5 grams, I will soon be 120 years old. My death is announced but my fame persists since every minute, 1,500 people buy me in Paris and elsewhere in France. Who am I ? The metro ticket!

For historian Grégoire Thonnat , this ticket has been used for nearly a hundred years at the crossroads of millions of travelers. Subterranean meetings where Africa also plays its role. The author talks about it in his fun book in the form of a subway ticket. A short history of the Paris metro ticket , published by Éditions Télémaque.

This book is primarily a very original object. Lying in the shape of a subway ticket, all dressed in yellow with its magnetic brown band as it was sold at the counter in the 90s. Today replaced by smart passes, the metro ticket is known to be disappearing. Still, he still sells 600 million a year.

Papa Wemba, Keziah Jones, the ticket has a ticket with Africa

They are called ambiancers and were born in Africa or France. Originally from Brazzaville, Kinshasa, Douala or Paris, they are passionate about chic clothes. These black-skinned dandies have developed Sape, the Society of Ambiancers and Stylish People. Some celebrities among these African dandies, the musicians Papa Wemba and Koffi Olomide.

The ultimate ambianceurs is to arrive in the Parisian capital's parties and cocktails as well as in the parts of African cities and villages in chic outfits with a non-canceled Paris metro ticket (note that it is obligatory) overflowing slightly pocket of their jacket.

The other African star is Keziah Jones, a young beginner singing in the underground corridors of the capital and noticed by a producer. This was the beginning of his career. Keziah Jones is so grateful for this metro that he was born that he will hold a concert on a dock in 2008.

The forbidden first class Jews and a military ticket for GIs

Grégoire Thonnat, the author of this little story of the Paris metro ticket, talks about the black period of the Paris metro. During the occupation, the Vichy regime banned the use of the first classes to all Jewish users of the metro. They were also obliged to travel only in the last train. For this reason, the car was nicknamed and long after the war, the "synagogue". We also learn that the GIs had their dedicated ticket. At the Liberation, the metro administration decided, with the representatives of the Allied troops, to create the GI ticket ( Galvanized Iron ) reserved for Anglo-American soldiers circulating in the French capital.

As many colors as adventures

From its birth in 1900 on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition to today, the ticket has seen all the colors. Passed from pink to beige from green to purple to yellow or white today, the ticket began by serving only the only line of the network, line 1. We were at the beginning of the century, July 19, 1900 and the trip allowed to cross Paris from West to East. It is this line 1 which is still in operation between the Porte de Neuilly and Vincennes.

The missed metro of Louis de Funès, the nostalgia of Michèle Morgan

The author has collected the unique testimony of Michèle Morgan who called him personally one morning to tell him his love of the Paris metro. Above all, the actress loves the smell of oars. Proust's madeleines, she recalls, memories that go back to the mere touch of the perfume of the oars that reminds her of her beginnings as an actress when she was young when she bought her subway tickets to go to her comedy classes in Paris.

Another adventure, that of the actor Louis de Funès who, young actor without money did not find roles important enough to be able to live there. It was by missing his subway that he came face to face with a friend of his youth. This friend's name was Daniel Gélin, also an actor but known and had hired on the set that will start his career.

The saving ticket of Juliette Greco

As for Juliette Greco, she owes her salute to the metro ticket found at the bottom of a bag. France was at war this year 1943 during the arrest of his mother by the German police. The young Juliet was 16 years old, her sister was 19 years old, they had been absent and only discovered the horror when they returned to the family home. The house was in Bergerac near Bordeaux and the girls obeyed their mother who had made them promise to go to Paris in case of misfortune. But the Gestapo stalked them. After a stay in prison where she was beaten, Juliette was left alone and without resources the Paris of the Occupation. It was this subway ticket that made him think of one of his mother's friends who lived in the center of Paris. Young Juliette will join this friend by subway and will be protected until the end of the war.

Punchers and their tongs to print 365 days of the year

Other anecdotes about the couple of famous singers Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin or the no less famous punchers, these agents who for 75 years punched the tickets with their forceps, leaving the trace of the day before leaving the users to win the docks ... all these true stories are to read in Little story of the Paris metro ticket , a unique book of its kind.

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