Why the French are planning a “shit flashmob” protest ahead of the Olympics
whether or not it really happens, the idea has been incredible popular.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron has been unpopular recently, for a host of reasons, some of which have launched protests all over the country in the past few years.
Next month, the country is hosting the Olympics and the French truly want to make a spectacle of it all and have been spending impressive amounts of money to make the city as ready for the games as they can. Among other things, they have spent nearly US$1.5 billion dollars just to clean us the Seine, the river that runs through Paris, almost for the exclusive purpose of making the river safe for Olympic swimming events.
Many people in France seem to think that money could have been spent better in other ways. To express their disapproval, they would like the president to swim in their crap.
The whole idea came out of an announcement Macron made in response to yet another failed water safety test of the river. “I will swim in the river myself to prove that it is safe,” he said, more or less. Then the mayor of Paris decided that she would join him. Never mind the fact that politicians swimming in waterways will not help them to pass the e-coli requirements set out by the Olympic committee. In fact, the river has not been deemed healthy to swim in by French authorities in since 1923.
Organizers have said that there is no Plan B if the water quality does not meet European safety standards during the two weeks of the games. Concerns that races will have to be postponed are growing each day as the river continues to fail water quality tests, especially after heavy rainfall in May. E. Coli readings in may were more than three times the required level.
The people of France seem determine, or at least interested, in trying to make it so. The coordinated mass crapping event is designed to coincide with the exact moment when Macron has said he will go for a swim on June 23rd - 12:00pm. Some of the websites feature calculators that will help you to determine the best time for you to personally crap in the review and then how long it will take to float to meet the president, tides and the prevailing currents considered.
Parisians and others have vowed to fill the river with crap on the day Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo take to the water in what they have dubbed a “s*** flashmob.” The hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin, or “I shit in the Seine on June 23,” began trending last month and has gained traction across social media. The initial post gained over half a million impressions on Twitter, and posts on TikTok have garnered well over a million views.
Memes and AI-generated pictures sprang up all over French social media. A website dedicated to the campaign cropped up with a handy tool to inform people exactly what time they should empty their bowels into the river based on their distance away from Paris. The message on the website’s homepage reads: “Because after putting us in s*** it is up to them to bathe in our s***.”
For the record, we live nowhere near the Seine, but if we did, I would needed to act last week to make sure my contribution made it to the city in time.