The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are only a month away, but there's still a nasty controversy brewing over one of the spots that serves as a focal point for the event: the Seine River. After months of testing it turns out high concentrations of bacteria from sewage water and sewage, residents fed up with river pollution, just weeks before Olympic athletes are due to dive in, are threatening to stage a mass defecation in protest.
A website has emerged with the viral hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin, which translates to: “I sh*t in the Seine on June 23.” A Google search for the phrase takes people to the website, represented by a '💩' emoji in the search engine. The site repeats the phrase, taking direct aim at French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who have both pledged to swim before the Games to prove the Seine is safe.
“Because after they put us in shit, it's up to them to bathe in our shit,” the website declares. It also features a calculator that allows users to enter how far they live from the center of Paris, then calculates when they need to relieve themselves in the river to allow the waste to end up in the heart of the capital at noon on June 23 .
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Local news channel said Actuparis The protest came as a joke after Hidalgo and other officials pledged in late May to make the river swimmable in time for open-water events during the Summer Games. Recent tests have shown that “alarming levels” of bacteria are still present. According to ActuParis, a computer engineer was behind the viral protest idea, and he seems unsure how much actual action it will generate on Sunday.
“At the beginning the intention was to make a joke, by echoing this ironic hashtag,” the anonymous instigator told the newspaper. “Will people eventually really start working in the Seine, or will they set up militant actions? Nothing is ruled out.”
The pollution of the Seine has been a major point of contention in the run-up to the Olympic Games. The French government has already spent almost $1.5 billion trying to clean the river enough to make it swimmable, even if wet weather requires complicated efforts. Officials announced this on Friday test results from mid-June however, show levels of E. coli and enterococcal bacteria in the river Axios reported Paris region official Marc Guillaume expressed confidence that events for the river would go ahead as planned.
In May, the charity Surfrider carried out tests that found pollutants at levels higher than allowed by sports federations, with one reading on the iconic Alexandre III Bridge in Paris showing levels three times higher than the maximum allowed by triathlon and open water swimming federations, according to French news agency AFP. Tests during the first eight days of June showed persistent contamination.
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E.coli It is known to cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and sepsis, according to the CDC enterococci has been linked to meningitis and serious infections, and some strains are known to be resistant to available drugs.
International Olympic Committee director Christophe Dubi said last week that there are “no reasons to doubt” that the planned events in the Seine will go ahead as planned.
“We are confident that we will swim in the Seine this summer,” he said.
