The Paris Metro has become a symbol of the capital, and of 20th-century France. "L'homme qui prend le Metro" - the man who takes the Metro - is the French equivalent of "Joe average". The words "Metro, boulot, do-do" (Metro, job, sleep) are a cliche summarising the monotonous despair of city life. Writing in La Gazette des Lettres in 1952, Robert Margerit described the transformation of Parisian faces in the train. "Here, there is nothing to keep their eyes busy, to distract them from themselves. Everyone sinks into himself: each becomes his own statue . . . buried for a few minutes he does not die; only his soul separates from his flesh and goes into his face, like blood when you blush."
To avoid making eye contact, Metro passengers read ads for St Maclou carpets and "Tele 7 jours". Some of them sleep; others carry tomes of Proust and Sartre, computer manuals, government reports. There can be few experiences as unpleasant as squeezing into a train at rush hour, yet Parisians profess great affection for the Metro's sounds and smells, for its screeching brakes and scent of burning rubber.
The Metro is the best way for a foreigner "to understand at once, quickly and correctly, the essence of Paris", Franz Kafka wrote in his Travel Notes. During the second World War, its staff, like French society, divided. Executives collaborated with Nazi occupation forces, firing Jewish employees and sending others to labour camps in Germany. Most of the drivers and mechanics joined the communist Resistance and made the underground tunnels unsafe for Germans.
The Metro's construction was debated for 45 years - Dubliners take heart - and had it not been for the imminence of the 1900 World's Fair, the city and central governments, proponents of above-ground and underground systems respectively, would probably have argued much longer. In the meantime, London, Berlin and New York all built subways. The French eventually made up for the delay, becoming world leaders in Metro construction, installing undergrounds in Cairo, Santiago and Taiwan.
For 36 years, the biggest building site ever seen in France was supervised by a frail, white-bearded engineer from Brittany, Fulgence Bienvenue. Bienvenue didn't retire until 1932, when he was 80. Although this line is superfluous "the father of the Metro" installed electric trains on his transport system, he refused to light his apartment with anything but oil lamps. He died in 1936 all but forgotten; only one Paris newspaper published a death notice. In September, the RATP will hold a ceremony at the Montparnasse-Bienvenue station in his honour.
The Metro centennial has spawned a cottage industry in trinkets, exhibitions and renovation. Metro T-shirts and key-chains are on sale in big stations. Earlier this month, the chairman of the RATP inaugurated the refurbished St Germain-des-Pres station, which looked as if every one of its white tiles had been hand-polished. Because St Germain is the heart of the French publishing industry, excerpts from literary masterpieces are projected onto the walls. Glass cases on the platforms hold an eclectic mix of Proust and Vargas Llosa, Oscar Wilde and Henry Miller. But St Germain is on the notorious line 4; how long will it take the gangs from Clignancourt to discover - and vandalise - this gleaming temple of culture, or the eight other stations decorated on themes including sports, cinema, Europe and music?
The RATP is spending £132 million to renovate half of its 297 stations. This encompasses an overdue tribute to Hector Guimard, the architect hired by Bienvenue to design his metro stations - close to 180 of them - before French officials hounded Guimard out of his job in 1904 because they didn't like his fluid nouille (noodle) or art nouveau style.
Now the RATP is restoring the 86 surviving Guimard stations. Only two of 20 in his beautiful "dragonfly" design - fanned wings of glass and wrought iron - remain, at Porte Dauphine and Abbesses. The shunned Guimard emigrated to New York, and it was the New York Museum of Modern Art that first recognised his genius, buying a disused Metro entrance 40 years ago, to show the birth of the art nouveau movement.
Bienvenue, Guimard . . . victims of the Metro's cruel indifference and failure to recognise its heroes.
The RATP's free exhibition, "The Metro Century" is open until January 1st, 2001, from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. every day except Saturday. It is located at the Maison de la RATP, 189 rue de Bercy, Paris 12e.