PARIS -- French transport officials unveiled a perfume Friday aimed at transforming the foul-smelling stink of the Paris underground railway network.
The scent, named "Madeleine" by the RATP Paris-region transport authority after one of the smelliest stations, is to be introduced throughout the city's rail network over the next six weeks, RATP officials said.Madeleine will spread flowery notes of "countryside, woods, flowers and fruit" throughout Metro stations, the officials told a news conference held inside the Invalides Metro station.
A whiff of Madeleine, however, revealed a strong resemblance to an air freshener.
Every month, 1.5 tons of the fragrance will be added to the system's cleaning products to overpower the existing smells of decaying bacteria, human sweat, urine, vomit, ozone, burning rubber and toasted wood.
"We had to find a smell that was sweet rather than violent, that lingered for two weeks and that suggested a feeling of cleanliness and well-being rather than of filthiness being covered up," Metro director Jacques Rapoport told Reuters.
The project required five years of research and development.
The commuter rail network, whose stations are crossed daily by more than 5 million people, has had a bad smell since the system opened its first line in 1900.
Madeleine is not the first proposed remedy.
A variety of perfumes have been tried out since the 1920s, including "Francine," whose scent of lavender, eucalyptus and mint was tested in 1993 and 1994 but generated more complaints than praise.
To avoid a similar fate for the latest fragrance, Madeleine has been rigorously tested on actual commuters, Rapoport said.