French protesters to poo in the Seine amid Paris 2024 Olympics controversy

By Charlie Sawyer

Published Jun 6, 2024 at 09:00 AM

Reading time: 2 minutes

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Image courtesy of Adelien Vandeweghe from Pexels

In a move that is seriously giving French Revolution vibes, citizens in Paris have announced plans to stage a ‘defecation flashmob’, or as we less articulate individuals might call it, a ‘poop protest’ on 23 June 2024 in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s $1.4 billion state-backed plan to clean up the Seine ahead of the Summer Olympics. Fuelled by anger over the Seine expenses and still resentful towards Macron for the 2023 pension reform upheaval, Parisians are making a very clear statement: we’re going to sh*t all over your beloved games. Honestly, it’s a massive slay.

Welcome back to Explained By a Blonde. This week is all about the French girlies who’re willing to do quite literally anything to make a statement and fight their corner. It’s news to no one that the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris has been shrouded in controversy and gossip for quite some time now, but this recent ‘doo-doo drama’ has sent things into a completely different realm. Let’s get into all the dirty details.

The plans first began going viral on social media towards the end of May, after both Macron and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, promised to take a swim in the city’s iconic river to prove that their efforts to pursue a major clean-up operation were not in vain.

Shortly after it was revealed that two of the most important individuals in French politics would be taking a dip in the Seine, a plan was hatched to muddy the waters.

The hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin which translates to #IshitintheSeineonJune23 began trending almost immediately, and soon an official website was launched with the attached slogan: “Because after putting us in shit it’s up to them to bathe in our shit.”

Cleaning up the Seine in order to try and make it swimmable for the Olympics athletes has been no easy feat. According to The Guardian, the state-backed plan has entailed several years of work on wastewater management, treatment plants, filtering stations and storm basins to lower the river’s bacterial contamination from faecal waste.

Expectations are that by the time of the Olympics, 75 per cent of identified bacterial pollution will have been eliminated. After it being illegal to swim in the capital’s river for 100 years because of dangerously high pollution levels, the ultimate goal is to then open the Seine to the public in 2025.

Parisians have been on knife’s edge for some time now and it’s evident that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to make their discontentment with the French government abundantly clear.

Some have argued that it all began with the expansive protests in 2023 regarding Macron’s pension reform proposal. The French president made the controversial decision to force through pension reforms without a vote in parliament, meaning that the retirement age in the country has since been raised from 62 to 64.

Lasting almost six months, the demonstrations resulted in widespread disruption and rioting in the French capital.

In the run-up to the Olympics, a number of French creators began posting on social media warning tourists not to come to Paris because people were planning to resume mass disruption. One TikToker, santasolina, said: “When Macron forced the reform, we made him a promise: ‘no retirement reform, no Olympics games’. Since the only thing he cares about is money, we’re going to hit him where it hurts. And so that’s why you should not come to Paris for the Olympic Games because we are collectively organising to make sure that it’s going to be bad.”

So, it seems as though the upcoming poop-scapade is only going to be the beginning of what’s shaping up to be a seriously messy summer. If I were Macron right now, I’d be absolutely shitting it… Sorry, I had to.