Parisians Plan Poop Protest Over Seine’s Pollution Problems

With the Paris Olympics approaching in a month, a controversial campaign has surfaced in Paris, France, featuring the slogan, “Let’s defecate in the Seine River.”

According to CBS News on the 23rd, a website featuring the hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin has surfaced. This French hashtag translates to “I sh*t in the Seine on June 23,” encouraging Parisians to pollute the river.

The Seine River, traversing Paris, is set to host the triathlon swimming and open water events, known as the swimming marathon, during the upcoming Olympics. However, ongoing controversy surrounds its suitability for these events, with reports indicating that the water quality exceeds bacterial standards, including E. coli.

The website ridiculed French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who pledged to swim in the Seine to demonstrate its cleanliness, stating, “They’ve thrown us into the shit, now it’s their turn to be in our shit.”

The site also provided a calculation to guide citizens on when to defecate so that their waste would reach the city center by noon on the 23rd, depending on their distance from downtown Paris. The date was chosen because it was the day Hidalgo had committed to swimming. However, due to the rising river levels, Hidalgo canceled her swim on the 23rd and vowed to fulfill her promise before the Olympics’ opening.

The website’s creator noted that despite substantial government investments in cleaning the river for swimming, the water quality remains inadequate. At least 1.4 billion euros has been spent on the Seine River purification project.

Paris examined the Seine’s water quality from the 1st to the 9th of this month. The E. coli level exceeded both European swimming guidelines and the standards of the International Triathlon Union (1,000 per 100mL).

Speaking to local media Actu Paris, the anonymous programmer behind the site remarked, “The problem is that all the resources invested so far have failed to solve all the social problems we are currently facing. We feel abandoned. We know where their priorities were.”