Letter from the CTV Communication Department to Paul Magès, 31 July 1997

The Citroën Vélizy Technical Centre requests Paul Magès's consent to name a street at the site after him, in tribute to his role as an inventor.

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Presentation and original captions

During 1997, a competition was organised to name the streets of the Vélizy Technical Centre. Later, a poster would inform the centre's staff of the names of the inventors selected. On 31 July 1997, the Vélizy Communication Department informed Paul MAGÈS of the result of the consultation. He accepted, of course, and gave his agreement on the following 12 August. During September, a ceremony was organised on site. Paul MAGÈS unveiled the plaque, and to everyone's astonishment, the plaque bore the following name: Rue Paul MAGÈS "inventor of the hydraulic fitting" instead of "inventor of Citroën hydraulics". His son Michel, who was standing next to him, heard him say "I hope this one won't leak". The next day, his son contacted the Communication Department and expressed his father's disappointment, as he felt that if he were considered merely the inventor of a fitting, the honour bestowed upon him was undeserved. A promise was made to rectify the "error". We will never know if the promise was kept. We have created a photo-montage of the plaque as we had suggested it to the Communication Department. To this day, the plaque has disappeared; it has been replaced by a "Totem" simply indicating: Rue Paul MAGÈS. One may wonder if this name means anything to the generations that followed his retirement.

Understanding this document

In this document

This official letter, dated 31 July 1997 and written on Automobiles Citroën – Centre Technique de Vélizy letterhead, informs Paul Magès of an honorary decision concerning him.

The signage project

The Communication Department explains that, "as part of the internal signage project", the site management wishes to name the streets of the Vélizy Technical Centre. A competition was organised "within the establishment" to choose the names: the Rue du Théâtre for the main axis (former Citroën production unit), and names of inventors "who have left their mark on the history of Citroën and Peugeot" p. 2.

The honour bestowed upon Paul Magès

The text specifies that out of all the proposals, only seven inventors' names could be selected. As Paul Magès's name "was cited several times by the staff", the Communication Department respectfully asks for his permission to give his name to one of the streets on the site p. 2.

Inauguration and contact

The letter announces an inauguration planned for "early September 1997" and invites Paul Magès to participate. It mentions a contact, Laurence Drévillon, with her telephone number, for any further information p. 2. A handwritten note indicates that a poster distributed internally was attached to the letter, presenting the selected street names p. 2.

Context

Paul Magès has remained in Citroën's history as the engineer who invented the hydropneumatic suspension, an iconic system equipping in particular the DS presented on 6 October 1955. Having joined Citroën in August 1925, he spent his entire career there until his retirement in September 1974 (Photographs of Paul Magès' retirement (1974)), before retiring to Ramatuelle (Var), where he became a municipal councillor and then 2nd deputy mayor. In 1997, he had therefore been living far from Vélizy for over twenty years. The Vélizy Technical Centre, opened in the 1970s, became the main engineering site for the PSA group (Peugeot-Citroën), which explains the reference to "inventors who have left their mark on the history of Citroën and Peugeot" mentioned in the letter. This type of symbolic tribute — giving an engineer's name to a street in an industrial site — is part of a tradition of promoting the technical heritage within companies.

Archivist's perspective

This letter constitutes a precious testimony to the institutional recognition granted to Paul Magès during his lifetime, more than forty years after his initial work on the hydropneumatic suspension and nearly two years before his death on 22 September 1999. It shows that his name remained, in 1997, spontaneously associated by "the staff" of the Technical Centre with the company's history p. 2, which suggests that his technical memory was still vivid within Citroën, even though he had been leading a second life in Ramatuelle for some twenty years.

The respectful wording of the letter — requesting his agreement rather than informing him of a fait accompli — probably suggests a desire to honour him personally. This document finds a direct echo in the response from Paul Magès dated 12 August 1997, as well as in the photographs of the "Rue Paul Magès" plaque which attest to the realisation of this tribute.