It was the finishing touch to line 14, the automated metro linking Saint-Denis-Pleyel, north of Paris, to Orly airport in the south. Villejuif-Gustave-Roussy metro station, serving the renowned Val-de-Marne cancer center, was inaugurated on Saturday, January 18. Valérie Pécresse, the right-wing president of the Greater Paris region, inaugurated this exceptional structure, crucial to the region's transport system and financed by the Société des Grands Projets.

At the bottom of this cylinder-shaped underground station, the future line 15 of the Grand Paris rail network, at a depth of 50 meters, and line 14, at 37 meters, will intersect. Architect Dominique Perrault brought natural light all the way down to the bottom. "There are lots of great stations, but this one is exceptional," he said, praising the power of cooperation between design and engineering.

For Pécresse, Villejuif-Gustave-Roussy has an added dimension: "We're finally seeing the realization of the vision driven by Ile-de-France Mobilités [IDFM, the transport organizing authority, which she also chairs], the region and the state," said Pécresse, elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2021. "Transport time is long," she added. IDFM doesn't fund stations, but all the metros and trains that run on Ile-de-France lines, and in particular line 14, operated by RATP (the public transport operator for Paris and its surrounding areas).

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