The French, lovers of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, will have to familiarize themselves with a new term: the Phryges.
These little red Phrygian caps with blue eyes and wearing sneakers are the mascots of Paris 2024, those who will animate the sports arenas during the competitions, those who will appear on the various derivative objects and communication media.
We present to you the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge!
The mascots of #Paris2024 ✨
Sporty, party girls… and French 🇫🇷
Here are the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge!
The #Paris2024 mascots ✨
They are sporty, love to party... and are so French 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/plupKzQqNs
— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) November 14, 2022
Paris 2024 revealed their faces on Monday.
So often the mascots are represented by animals, the organizing committee has chosen - as for the realization of the course of the marathon which retraces the march of the women towards Versailles in 1789 - to make a nod to the French Revolution.
Read alsoParis 2024: how the marathon route was designed
"From the start, we wanted to create mascots that made sense and that embodied this French spirit by offering something new," explains Tony Estanguet, president of the organizing committee.
Instead of proposing an animal, we chose an ideal.
The Phrygian cap is a symbol that carries the values of freedom and humanism, which are at the heart of our project.
It's also a nod to the revolutionary spirit that we want to instill in the Games.
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The Phryges do breaking, cycling or judo...
The management of the Paris 2024 brand, which worked on the project for almost two years, opted not for a single mascot, but for a strange family.
Like the Mignons or the Smurfs, the Phryges move forward happily as a tribe.
With two heroines: the Olympic Phryge, seductive and a little crafty, and the Paralympic Phryge, party girl and extroverted.
Paris 2024 has chosen two mascots that look alike and a visible disability for the Paralympic Phryge, whose right leg has been replaced by a prosthesis.
"She is for us the spearhead of a great movement of inclusion and equal opportunity", underlines Julie Matikhine, director of the brand at Paris 2024.
Read alsoParis 2024: 82% of the inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis say they are in favor of the organization of the Olympic Games
The little red beings are therefore preparing to sweep over France.
The Paris 2024 teams have imagined different poses for them.
The Phryges do breaking, cycling or judo, they play with Parisian pigeons, become waiters or visit the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe or the Louvre Museum.
The phryges, very restless, support, jump for joy or proudly carry the tricolor flag.
A cockade adorns their faces each time, again a reference to the history of France.
We find the Phryges on visuals but also, from this Monday, on various derivative objects, in particular stuffed animals.
These are manufactured by Gipsy et Doudou et Compagnie and are available at Carrefour, partner of the Paris 2024 Games, in the network of toy stores and at the official Games store, which opens its doors this Monday at Les Halles, in Paris. .
Prices (from 20 euros) vary according to size and brand.
Pins (from 7 euros), t-shirts (from 19.90 euros) and mugs (from 9.90 euros) are also available.