Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame () is a

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

on line B and line C of the

Réseau Express Régional The (; ), commonly abbreviated RER (), is a hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system serving Paris and its suburbs. It acts as a combined city-center underground rail system and suburbs-to-city-center commuter rail, similar to the Elizabe ...

(RER) in Paris. Located in the 5th arrondissement, the station is named after the nearby Saint-Michel area and

Notre-Dame Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris ( ; meaning "Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris"), often referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the River Seine), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. It ...

. The station opened, as Pont Saint-Michel and with platforms on the line that is now RER line C, in 1900. It gained its current name in 1988 with the opening of the line B platforms.

Location

The main entrance to the station is in Place Saint-Michel on the

Rive Gauche The Rive Gauche (; Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two parts. When facing downstream, the southern bank is to the left, whereas the northern bank (or Rive Dr ...

of the

Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...

. There is also a satellite entrance to the line B platforms on Place Notre-Dame, which is on the

Île de la Cité The Île de la Cité (; English: City Island, "Island of the City") is one of the two natural islands on the Seine River (alongside, Île Saint-Louis) in central Paris. It spans of land. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of ...

across the Seine from Place Saint-Michel. The line C platforms run parallel to the Seine at just above river level and are provided by natural light through 28 large windows that are designed to withstand flooding from the river. The line B platforms pass underneath the Seine and are at right-angles under the RER C platforms. The station is linked by underground passageways to the Saint-Michel and Cluny–La Sorbonne stations of the

Paris Metro Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. Saint-Michel is on metro line 4 and Cluny–La Sorbonne is on metro line 10.

History

The RER line C section of the station dates back to 1900, when it opened as the Pont Saint-Michel station on the extension of the

Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans The ''Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans'' (, PO) was an early French railway company. It merged with the '' Chemins de fer du Midi'' to form the '' Chemins de fer de Paris à Orléans et du Midi'' (PO-Midi) in 1934. In 1938 the PO ...

from the

Gare d'Austerlitz Gare d'Austerlitz ( English: ''Austerlitz station''), officially Paris Austerlitz, is one of the seven large Paris railway terminal stations. The station is located on the left bank of the Seine in the southeastern part of the city, in the 13 ...

to a new terminus at the

Gare d'Orsay The Gare d'Orsay () is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris–Orléans railway). It w ...

. The Pont Saint-Michel station was built under the quays of the

, almost at river level, and its constrained location, with narrow and low platforms and

reverse curve In civil engineering, a reverse curve (or "S" curve) is a section of the horizontal alignment of a highway or rail route in which a curve to the left or right is followed immediately by a curve in the opposite direction. On highways in the Unit ...

s, affects operations to this day. Originally the platforms were lit by openings in the river bank, but these were filled in after the station was inundated during the Seine floods of 1910. In September 1979, a tunnel was constructed to link the Gare d'Orsay (now the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) () is a museum in Paris, France, on the Rive Gauche, Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts railway station built from 1898 to 1900. The museum holds mai ...

) to

Invalides The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old sold ...

thus creating a cross-city line initially called the

Transversal Rive Gauche RER C is one of the five lines in the Réseau Express Régional (English: Regional Express Network), a hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system serving Paris and its suburbs. The line crosses the region from north to south. Briefly, betwee ...

. At the same time, the Pont Saint-Michel station was slightly widened. In May 1980, the Transversal Rive Gauche became the core part of the new RER line C. The RER line B had passed under Pont Saint-Michel station since December 1977, but the location under the quays made the construction of an interchange difficult. In February 1988, the line B platforms were finally opened, and the station was renamed to Saint-Michel–Notre-Dame. At the same time, Cluny–La Sorbonne station on the metro, which had closed in 1939, was reopened to connect with the new RER station and give access to

Boulevard Saint-Germain The Boulevard Saint-Germain () is a major street in Paris on the Rive Gauche of the Seine. It curves in a 3.5-kilometre (2.1 miles) arc from the Pont de Sully in the east (the bridge at the edge of Île Saint-Louis) to the Pont de la Concord ...

. On 25 July 1995, as part of a campaign of terror bombings conducted by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, the station was the target of an attack, with a gas bottle exploding near one of the line B platforms, killing eight and wounding 100 people critically. This attack would mark the first of many in 1995 and is commemorated with a discrete memorial inside the platform. In August 2022, the line C platforms were closed for modernisation. Originally intended to be complete by December of the same year, the platforms eventually reopened in April 2023. The principal improvement was the reinstatement of

natural lighting Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

by replacing the original openings, closed in 1910, with 28 large windows that are designed to withstand flooding. Other improvements were the provision of improved ventilation and

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a Electric motor, motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the st ...

access.

Gallery

File:ELD - CRUE DE LA SEINE - PARIS - La gare Saint-Michel envahie par l;es eaux.JPG, The station during the 1910 flood File:Quai RER B direction Châtelet vu côté arrivée du train.jpg, One of two line B platforms File:Gare Saint-Michel - Notre-Dame - RER C 2023 1.jpg, Line C platforms after 2023 modernisation File:Gare Saint-Michel - Notre-Dame - RER C 2023 2.jpg, Close-up of new window fitted in 2023

Historical services

References

External links