The phryge mascot is seen on the sail of Banque Populaire XI, part of the Olympic torch relay, Brest Harbour, western France, on June 7.OSCAR CHUBERRE/Getty Images

“It’s supposed to be a hat,” I overheard one American tourist telling another while sitting at an outdoor café on an unseasonably chilly recent summer evening in Paris.

“A hat?” his bewildered tablemate replied.

The 2024 Paris Olympics mascot has been provoking similar reactions since it was unveiled more than 18 months ago. Even many French citizens had a hard time figuring it out at first. Some commentators initially compared the red triangular character with a curled top to a clitoris. So, no one could blame foreign tourists loosely familiar with French history for feeling nonplussed about this unusual mascot choice.

“It’s called a phryge,” I offered, unsure whether my interruption would be welcomed. (It was.) “It’s based on a red cap worn during the French Revolution. It symbolizes freedom.”

“Oh! Like Napoleon!”

“No, not Napoleon. A bit before Napoleon. Different hat.”

Days before the opening of the XXXIII Olympiad, phryges (pronounced free-juh) have become as ubiquitous in Paris as smoky sidewalk cafés. The façade of Paris City Hall is covered in Olympics regalia; like many city landmarks, including la Place de la Concorde, its grounds were closed off weeks ago in preparation for the big event.

Homeless migrants have been bussed out of the city. The hysteria surrounding a bedbug epidemic in Paris hotels, which authorities said had been “amplified” by a Russian disinformation campaign, has faded. About 45,000 police and military personnel have been mobilized in the country’s biggest-ever peacetime security operation. And after a $2-billion cleanup, the Seine is – maybe – fit for water sports.

France might be fin prête – ready to go – for the Olympics, were it not for one critical detail: Rarely has a host country seemed so indifferent to welcoming the world’s greatest sporting event. There has been palpably little pre-Games excitement, and surprisingly muted media coverage.

That will change as competition begins, and as les Bleus, as the French national soccer team is known, goes for gold. But the lack of Olympics buzz may have something to do with the fact that the French spent their spring and early summer consumed by another national sport: politics. They’re simply exhausted.

Americans have nothing on the French when it comes to arguing rudely and loudly about their country’s political future. France has as many cable news channels devoted to 24/7 political coverage as the U.S., which invented the formula. And the on-air vitriol has reached new highs since recent legislative elections produced a hung parliament, reflecting France’s deep divisions and growing ungovernability.

France is suddenly looking more like Italy than, well, Italy – with a pizza parliament and no stable governing coalition in sight. The country seems set for an extended period of political paralysis at a time when its public finances are in disarray, raising market fears of a debt crisis. French voters, never the easiest to please, have turned overwhelmingly pessimistic about the future of their country.

More than anyone else, one person is to blame for the blahs of his compatriots.

President Emmanuel........

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