The French are famed for their penchant for protesting, and now it seems as though they’re taking their tactics to the next level. No, they aren’t wheeling out la guillotine again, but they are reportedly planning to shit in the Seine.
That’s right: Parisians are reportedly organising a ‘shit flashmob’ on 23 June, in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s $1.4 billion state-backed plan to clean up the Seine ahead of the Olympics. The #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin hashtag, which translates to “I poop in the Seine on June 23”, has been gathering momentum on social media as backlash to the expensive project has grown. The campaign’s official slogan is: “Because after putting us in shit it’s up to them to bathe in our shit.” A number of protestors have allegedly already shat in the river.
The French are angry about the fact that so much money has been poured into the scheme to clean the river while other social issues have gone neglected. Notably, many are still angry at Macron for his proposal to raise the pension age from 62 to 64, a decision which sparked widespread protests in France last year.
Officials are intending to allow athletes to swim the Seine for the Olympics, with triathlon and open-water swimming events planned to take place in the river. According to The Guardian, the plan to clean up the Seine 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. French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo have both promised to prove the water is safe by swimming in the Seine before the Games this summer.
However, even without the dirty protest, there are still concerns that the river is not clean enough for swimming. Recent testing of samples of water from the Seine found that the water still contains E.coli.
Will more protestors follow through and shit in the Seine en masse on the 23rd? Only time will tell.