The overwhelming feeling after my visit there this week for the final World Press Briefing organised by Paris 2024 and the International Olympic Committee was one of je m’en fichais.

I expected to see the airport, railways and some of Paris’ iconic buildings dressed in Olympic or Paralympic branding with partners activating their sponsorship. 

But, after three days of travelling round the city via train, taxi, bus and foot, apart from the Olympic rings attached to the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall, it wasn’t until we were on our way to Charles de Gaulle Airport for the flight back to London that there was any real sign the Games were coming home.

That came when we passed the headquarters of energy company EDF, a premium Paris 2024 partner, whose building had a giant poster promoting some of the athletes it is sponsoring, including Clarisse Agbegnenou, a double Olympic gold medallist in judo at Tokyo 2020.

Once at the airport, a search to find some little Phrygian caps - the mascots for Paris 2024, which I think are brilliant - to take home as gifts looked like it was going to prove futile until we found a pile tucked away behind the replica Eiffel Towers in the Relay shop. 

By this stage before London 2012, a flagship shop had already been opened in Terminal 5 at Heathrow for more than six months and official merchandise was flying off the shelves.

Under the real Eiffel Tower yesterday, even the street vendors were not selling knock off Paris 2024 products alongside the unofficial Paris Saint-Germain shirts with Kylian Mbappé’s name on the back. That’s surely a sure sign of how little interest there is in the Games at the moment?

But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. Heck, there was hardly any buzz either about the Rugby World Cup which France is staging and that kicks off in Paris tomorrow.

Paris 2024 chief executive Etienne Thobois told me that he "disagreed" with me when I asked him about the lack of excitement. 

He reeled off a series of impressive statistics about volunteers (300,000 applications), sign ups for Club France (four million) and those organisations applying to join Terre de Jeux 2024, the label for local authorities or sporting movement organisations who want to associate themselves with the Games (4,000).

Thobois could also have pointed to the fact that when they made their last announcement in May, with 14 months until the Opening Ceremony on July 26, Paris 2024 had already sold 70 per cent of the 10 million tickets for the Olympic Games. 

They are expecting strong interest when they open Paralympic Games ticketing on October 9.

But, having listened to the state of planning for the Olympics and Paralympics which was then followed by a short venue tour taking in the Arena Bercy, the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome, the proposed equestrian venue at Versailles and a quick scoot around some of the city centre sites like the Place de la Concorde, Grand Palais, Champ de Mars, Esplanade des Invalides and, of course, the Eiffel Tower there’s no doubt that this is going to be a Games with plenty of je ne sais quoi.

There is a sang-froid about the preparations for Paris 2024, which is certainly welcome after the chaos of Rio 2016 and the postponement of Tokyo 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having fully embraced the philosophy of Thomas Bach’s "Agenda 2020" programme by utilising existing world-class sporting facilities, the need to build new expensive stadia and arenas has largely been eliminated.

At this stage of a city preparing to host the Games, the media in the host country are normally providing weekly updates on how much building and infrastructure work needs to be completed, how far behind organisers are and how far over budget they are likely to end up.

For Paris 2024, the biggest discussion at this stage seems to be about whether organisers will be fitting air conditioning, although this may have been at the forefront of journalists’ minds only because they had spent a day inspecting venues in temperatures of more than 30 degrees. 

For the record, Thobois revealed they were "seeking temporary solutions comparable to air conditioning".

Even concerns over whether the River Seine, proposed for open water swimming and the triathlon next year, would be clean enough to swim in next year were swotted away by organisers, despite test events having to be cancelled last month due to high pollution levels. 

"We came very close to being ready this year," Thobois said. "With another year, we are working hard to make sure it won’t happen again. We are very comfortable about the situation."

Paris is already the most visited city in the world - last year it and the surrounding region welcomed 44 million tourists, which was nearly at pre-pandemic levels. In the run-up to the Olympics, restaurateurs and others dealing with tourists in the city are being asked to smile and help when asked if they speak English. 

A new willingness to engage with visitors from all over the world and from different cultures was a very pleasant surprise.

France’s Minister for Sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games Amélie Oudéa-Castéra acknowledged, though, that there remains one tough nut to crack before Paris 2024 starts. 

"I promise that the taxi drivers will be welcoming and smile," she told journalists at a reception last night.

(I won’t mention next time I see her that on the way back to the airport today my taxi driver charged me nearly €20 above the agreed city fixed rate - and he didn’t even smile about it).

Even so, Paris j'ai hate next year. 

I know you are going to be fantastique.