"This station is Taekwondo Station"... Paris Metro Corporation's April Fools' Day Surprise Event

Olympic Commemoration Week and April Fools' Day Surprise Event

A 'Taekwondo Station' has appeared in a subway in Paris, France. This was a 'surprise event' prepared by the Paris transportation authorities for April Fools' Day to commemorate the upcoming Olympics scheduled to be held in a few months.

Paris Metro Line 8's 'Daumesnil' station has been renamed to 'Taekwon Daumesnil' station. [Image source=Paris Transport Authority (RATP) Line 8 X (formerly Twitter)]

On the 2nd (local time), the French newspaper Lib?ration reported that the Paris public transport company (RATP) temporarily changed the names of 15 subway stations on April 1st for April Fools' Day. The changed station names included several that evoked Olympic sports, including 'Taekwondo.' In particular, the Line 8 side shared a photo on its official X (formerly Twitter) account showing that 'Daumesnil' station had been changed to 'Taekwon Daumesnil' station, with the caption "Charyeot, Kyung-ye!" (Attention, Salute!).

Additionally, Line 2's 'Alexandre Dumas' station was changed to 'Dumarathon' (a play on marathon), 'Nation' station was changed to 'Natation' (meaning swimming), and 'Victor Hugo' station was changed to 'Victor Judo' (meaning judo). On Line 12, 'Sevres-Babylone' station became 'Sevres-Badminton,' and 'Solferino' station was changed to 'Surferino' (surfing). On Line 9, 'Trocadero' station was renamed 'Trocanoe' (canoe).

The Paris public transportation company shared the changed appearance of Line 8 subway stations along with the phrase "Attention, Salute!" [Image source=Paris public transportation company (RATP) Line 8 X (formerly Twitter)]

Regarding this, RATP explained, "April 1st is also the day marking the start of Olympic Week." Earlier, when Paris was selected as the host city for the 2017 Olympics, the Paris authorities established an annual Olympic Week to commemorate the event. This year's Olympic Week runs from April 1st to April 6th. However, to prevent confusion among citizens and tourists, RATP left half of the station signs unchanged and only displayed the altered station names for one day on April Fools' Day.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time RATP has held a station name change event. On April Fools' Day in 2016, to commemorate France's Independence Day on September 4th, the 'Quatre-Septembre' station was renamed 'Premier Avril' (April 1st) station. Later, in 2018, when the French national football team won the World Cup in Russia, the 'Bercy' station temporarily added the football team’s nickname 'Les Bleus' to its name to celebrate the victory.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.