École Militaire station

Metro station in Paris, France

École Militaire (ekɔl militɛːʁ) is a station on Line 8 of the Paris Métro. It is located north of and named after the École militaire in the 7th arrondissement.

The station is located under Avenue de La Motte Picquet, northeast of Place de l'École Militaire. Oriented on a north east/south west axis, it is positioned between the La Motte Picquet–Grenelle and La Tour Maubourg Métro stations, but is separated from the latter by the current Champ de Mars ghost station.

The station was opened on 13 July 1913 as part of the original section of Line 8 between Beaugrenelle (now Charles Michels, which is on Line 10) and Opéra. It owes its name to its location north of the École militaire, at the end of the south eastern perspective of the Champ de Mars. It was founded in 1750 on the proposal of the financier Joseph Paris Duverney, with the support of Madame de Pompadour, with the aim of creating an academic college for cadets of humble origins. On the grounds of the Grenelle farm, developed by Ange Jacques Gabriel, construction began in 1752, but the school did not open until 1760. It received young Bonaparte as a pupil in 1784. Nowadays, the École militaire brings together all higher military education organisations. From the 1950s until the 2000s, the station's walls were covered with a metallic panels with green horizontal uprights and golden and illuminated advertising frames. Subsequently, this arrangement was supplemented by Motte style seats, first in yellow, then green for colorimetric uniformity. As part of the RATP Renouveau du métro programme, the station corridors were renovated on 25 June 2004, then the platforms in 2007, resulting in the removal of their metal bodywork. This latest modernisation was completed in 2008. On 9 October 2019, half of the nameplates on the station platforms were temporarily replaced by the RATP in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Asterix and Obelix, as in eleven other stations. Taking up in particular the characteristic typography of the comic strip by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, École Militaire was humorously renamed École Légionnaire in reference to the tenth book in the series, Astérix Légionnaire. In 2019, 4,468,169 riders entered the station, which placed it at the 99th position out of 302 Métro stations for its use.

École Militaire is a standard configuration station. It has two platforms separated by the metro tracks. Established flush with the ground, the ceiling is made up of a metal deck, the silver coloured beams of which are supported by vertical walls. The bevelled white ceramic tiles cover the walls, the tunnel exits and the outlets of the corridors. The metal advertising frames are tilted and the name of the station is inscribed in Parisine font on enamelled plates. The seats, in Akiko style, are green. The lighting is semi direct, projected onto the walls, the advertising frames and the first row of ceiling vaults.

The station is served by lines 28, 80, 82, 86 and 92 of the RATP bus network.