A rooftop on the roof of Paris La Défense Arena, a night at the top of the Eiffel Tower... Many have played the humor card for this famous April 1st, and the RATP has obviously played along as well. For its April Fool's joke, the Parisian Autonomous Public Transport Authority has transformed the names of some of its metro stations to honor (no surprise) the 2024 Olympics.
Lutte Chaumont, Surfécérino, Escrimée...
A few months before the opening ceremony, the Olympics are taking over the Parisian metro. Throughout April 1st, about fifteen stations have transformed into sports practices: Sèvres-Babylone has equipped itself with rackets to become "Sèvres-Badminton", Nation has taken to the water and transformed into "Natation", Trocadéro has taken the paddles and become "Trocanoë", Bercy has hit the road towards "Bercyclisme"... The Paralympic Games to the.SSI will have been honored with Avron becoming "Aviron / Para Aviron" or Pigalle transformed into "Pigoalball". In short, we have a lot of jokesters at the RATP.
[#1erAvril] Tous en piste @FFCyclisme #RATP pic.twitter.com/LK0E66Q3KN
— Ligne 6 (@Ligne6_RATP) April 1, 2024
The people of the Paris region are not convinced
RATP is no stranger to pranks in metro stations. We remember the "Apero" replacing "Opera" on the last April Fool's Day, or "Bercy les bleus" celebrating France's victory in the 2018 World Cup at Bercy station. A touch of humor that doesn't seem to particularly resonate with metro users, who would much prefer if all this energy and money were put towards renovating the declining metro lines. After all, having trains run on time might be better...
.Minute rabat-joie : si la RATP pouvait utiliser son énergie (et son argent) pour améliorer le quotidien des usagers, ce serait mieux. 🫶🏼 https://t.co/0T7nHRZpop
— Victor (@victordesmauges) April 1, 2024