You think Parisians grumble a lot? Don’t get them started on the Olympic Games | Robert McLiam Wilson

From price rises to a ridiculous mascot, the French have had it up
to here with the event

We tend to view Paris as a fairytale princess, all romance and half-seen glitter. But for all its glamour, Paris has actually been depressed and irritable for a couple of hundred years now.

Far from being subdued by it, the citizens of Paris wear this perma-gloom like a disconsolate badge of honour. More tightly packed than in any housing estate high-rise, Parisians lead their stressed, underpaid lives defiantly. They mock and complain. They rail and grumble. Unlike anywhere I've ever known, in this city, if you say something nice about the place, the citizens disdainfully correct you. Paris doesn't believe it is the best place. It just knows everywhere else is worse.