A month before the opening of the Paris Olympics, Parisian citizens launched a campaign called Poop in the Seine.
The Olympics have failed to garner the support of the French public, and instead, have become a target for boycotts and criticism due to rising prices and accommodation issues caused by the influx of tourists and event personnel from around the world.
On June 24, the British newspaper The Independent reported that the hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin (Poop in the Seine on June 23) has gained massive popularity on social media.
Posts on the site featuring this hashtag ridicule French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who have declared they will swim in the Seine to prove its cleanliness, with claims such as “They’ve dumped us into the poop, now it’s their turn to be dumped in our poop.”
Various social media platforms feature posts with images of poop floating in the Seine and images of Macron in a swimsuit covered in poop from the Seine, all tagged with #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin.
There is even a formula online that tells citizens when to defecate based on how far they are from the center of Paris to ensure their feces reach the center by noon on June 23.
The 23rd was chosen as it was the day Hidalgo promised to swim in the Seine.
However, due to the rising river levels, Hidalgo canceled her scheduled swim and pledged to keep her promise before the opening of the Olympics.
During the Olympics, some events of the triathlon and swimming will take place in the Seine. French citizens criticize the government for pouring a huge budget into improving the water quality of the Seine, which remains dirty, thus unnecessarily wasting the budget.
Swimming has been officially banned in various parts of the Seine since 1923 due to bacterial levels. The Independent pointed out that last month’s heavy rain caused the E. coli levels near the triathlon swimming start line to triple the usual amount.
Despite this, Macron declared, “There is no issue with the Seine’s water quality,” and stated that he would swim in the Seine, leading to the appearance of AI-generated images of Macron covered in waste from the Seine.
The anonymous programmer who created this site told the media, “We feel abandoned. We can see where their priorities lie,” and criticized the city for focusing only on purifying the river water while neglecting the lives of the citizens.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that at least $2.02 billion has been invested so far to improve the water quality of the Seine. This has led to complaints that Parisian citizens have been sidelined in the government’s spending priorities.
