LINE 7 — MF19 WORKSHOP

RATP’s 18 September update gives the clearest current picture of the site planned north of the existing Line 7 terminus at La Courneuve–8 Mai 1945. The workshop will occupy an industrial site at 162–172 avenue Paul Vaillant-Couturier, close to the boundary with Drancy.

The main maintenance building is planned at roughly 9,000 m² with eight maintenance tracks. Île-de-France Mobilités also describes a dedicated train-cleaning hall with two positions for internal and external cleaning. Together, the facilities are intended to give the MF19 fleet the space and equipment required for routine maintenance, servicing and reliable daily operation.

The price tag is substantial. In April 2025, Île-de-France Mobilités approved preliminary studies for a project with an overall target cost of €291.6 million at 2023 prices — usually rounded to €292 million — and approved €5.73 million for the next design stage. The transport authority says it is funding the project in full.

Line 7 currently uses MF77 trains, with maintenance centred on the Porte de Choisy workshop in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. Île-de-France Mobilités says that workshop dates from 1931 and was modernised in the 1970s, but its size, access and ageing buildings make it unsuitable for maintaining the MF19 even with major alterations.

That is why this is a new-site project rather than another refurbishment. The La Courneuve facility is also designed to support Line 10. Its existing Auteuil workshop is not large enough to handle the whole Line 10 MF19 fleet, so some Line 10 trains are being maintained elsewhere during the transition before La Courneuve becomes available.

For passengers, that behind-the-scenes capacity matters. New trains only improve service if the network can inspect, clean, repair and return them to traffic efficiently. Maintenance sites are part of the reliability programme, not a separate industrial side project.

The depot is not being placed directly on the existing running line. RATP plans a new tunnel beneath avenue Paul Vaillant-Couturier to connect the workshop with the rear sidings beyond La Courneuve–8 Mai 1945.

Public-procurement documents describe a connection of roughly 430 metres between the existing rear-garage area and the maintenance site. The project includes changes to the existing tunnel and a new section built beneath the RD932 corridor.

Île-de-France Mobilités has also said the connection is being designed with the possibility of a future extension toward Mairie de Drancy via Le Bourget. That should not be read as a new extension opening date: it is a future-proofing provision in the maintenance project, not confirmation that a passenger extension has been authorised or funded on the same timetable.

RATP’s current project calendar sets out a long lead time: feasibility and opportunity studies ran from 2019 to 2024, detailed design continues through 2026, and the main construction phase is planned for 2027 to 2031. The target for putting the workshop into service is the end of 2031.

The new trains follow later. Île-de-France Mobilités currently places the MF19 rollout on Line 7 in 2033. That spacing is deliberate: the workshop and access connection need to be operating before the line depends on them for its new fleet.

MF19 is the common next-generation steel-wheel Metro platform being deployed across Lines 3, 3bis, 7, 7bis, 8, 10, 12 and 13. Each line has a different timetable because its depots, infrastructure and operational systems are at different stages of readiness.

A large rail workshop beside homes and existing businesses is also a neighbourhood project. RATP says acoustic protection is being worked into the building layout, façades and roof, with a noise barrier planned between the rail fan and the back of the site.

The design also includes landscaped and planted areas intended to soften the industrial site and fit it into wider public-space improvements. A public consultation ran from December 2021 to January 2022, and further environmental and public-inquiry procedures have followed as the project moved toward construction.

For La Courneuve and Drancy residents, the practical impacts will evolve once the construction programme becomes more detailed. Road works, worksite access and local traffic arrangements should be checked against official notices closer to each phase rather than assumed years in advance.

Nothing in the 18 September workshop update means Line 7 riders wake up to new trains next week. The useful takeaway is the sequence: build the maintenance and cleaning capacity, connect it physically to the line, commission the site, then bring the new fleet into passenger operation.

Line 7’s current MF77 trains have already had refurbishment work, so the transition is a managed replacement rather than an emergency withdrawal. The new workshop is the infrastructure that lets the next fleet be supported for decades after it arrives.

If you use Line 7 regularly, keep this project separate from short-term engineering notices. RATP’s live traffic and works pages remain the right source for tonight’s service, this weekend’s closure or a temporary station change. The La Courneuve workshop is about the network passengers are expected to be using in the early 2030s.

This article was checked on 19 September 2026 against RATP’s project page modified 18 September 2026, Île-de-France Mobilités’ official project announcement and decision material, plus the 2026 public-inquiry record. Dates are programme targets and may move as design, procurement and construction progress.

• RATP — Line 7: a new maintenance workshop at La Courneuve, modified 18 September 2026
• Île-de-France Mobilités — new MF19 workshop for Lines 7 and 10
• Île-de-France Mobilités — 10 April 2025 board decision
• 2026 public inquiry — Line 7 maintenance workshop and access tunnel