Paris metro line 6: the elevated line with an Eiffel Tower view

Line 6 traces a half-circle across the south of Paris, along the old outer boulevards. It is 13.6 km long, has 28 stations and takes about 31 minutes end to end. It starts at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile, under the Arc de Triomphe, and ends at Nation.

For a visitor, the useful stations are mostly in the west: Charles de Gaulle-Étoile (Arc de Triomphe), Kléber and Boissière, then Trocadéro (change for line 9), Passy, Bir-Hakeim (Eiffel Tower and Champ-de-Mars, with the RER C at Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel), La Motte-Picquet-Grenelle and Montparnasse-Bienvenüe. Further east, Denfert-Rochereau leads to the Catacombs, and Bercy to the park and the concert arena.

From the Trocadéro, Bir-Hakeim is two stops away, via Passy. But on foot, the Tower is just as close: see our Trocadéro to Eiffel Tower distance page.

Of its 13.6 km, line 6 runs 6.1 km in the open air, or 45% of the route. It's the most elevated line on the network: 13 of its 28 stations are outdoors. It crosses the Seine twice, each time on a viaduct, at Bir-Hakeim in the west and at Bercy in the east.

There are four elevated sections. The longest runs from Bir-Hakeim to Sèvres-Lecourbe, on a 2,670 m metal viaduct above the boulevards de Grenelle, Garibaldi and Pasteur. Before Cambronne, then near Sèvres-Lecourbe, you catch a few seconds' glimpse of the dome of Les Invalides. In the east, the line also runs above ground on boulevard Auguste-Blanqui and boulevard Vincent-Auriol.

To cut the noise on these viaducts, the line has run on rubber tyres since 1974.

Between Trocadéro and Passy, the metro is still in the tunnel. Passy station is half underground, half on a viaduct, because the ground drops steeply towards the Seine. The view opens up as you leave it.

The train then crosses the Seine on the Passy viaduct, 230 m long, which sits on top of the Pont de Bir-Hakeim. The Eiffel Tower is upstream, on the east side. Heading towards Nation, it's on your left; heading towards Charles de Gaulle-Étoile, it's on your right. On the other side, you see the Maison de la Radio, the Île aux Cygnes and the Beaugrenelle district.

The crossing lasts less than a minute. For a photo, get close to the window before you reach Passy. And to photograph the viaduct itself, get off at Bir-Hakeim and walk back under the arches: that's the setting of our Pont de Bir-Hakeim page.

The first section, between Étoile and Trocadéro, opened on 2 October 1900, to serve the Exposition universelle. It was extended to Passy on 5 November 1903. The Passy viaduct was built from 1903 to 1906, and the line reached Place d'Italie on 24 April 1906.

This branch was first called "line 2 south", then it was attached to line 5. The line numbered 6 then only linked Place d'Italie to Nation, from 1909. It was only on 6 October 1942 that line 6 took its current route, from Étoile to Nation. Bir-Hakeim station was called Grenelle until 1949.

The trains changed recently: MP 89 trains, transferred from line 4, replaced the old MP 73 trains, the last of which ran on 8 July 2026.

For modernisation works, the RATP closes the whole line, all day, on several Sundays. After 6 and 20 September, the remaining dates are 4 October, 11 October, 18 October, 8 November and 22 November 2026.

On those days, a replacement bus runs between Charles de Gaulle-Étoile and La Motte-Picquet-Grenelle. To reach the Trocadéro, line 9 is an option: it serves the same station. Our getting to Trocadéro page also covers the buses.

The block at the top of the page shows live service status. Check it before you set off, especially on Sundays.

The first trains leave the end stations at around 5:30 am, every day. At night, service ends at around 1:15 am on weekdays and Sundays, and at around 2:15 am on Friday and Saturday nights and on the night before a public holiday. These are arrival times at the end station: at a station in between, like Trocadéro, the last train comes earlier.

If you are staying late at the Trocadéro, leave yourself some margin. And if you are staying near Passy, the next stop, walking back is also an option.