Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you just clicked through on a headline that told you Parisians are planning to protest the Olympics by pooping in the Seine River. I'll let you decide what that says about you.
Nevertheless, Parisians are, in fact, planning on dropping a communal deuce in the Seine River in the leadup to the Paris Olympics.
Why? you ask.
Well, believe it or not, Paris has offered up the Seine as a location for the open water Olympic swimming events, which are set to begin at the end of July. And that has led to a vow from French authorities to "clean up" the river before these events, which has already cost them over a billion dollars. They'll clean up a small portion of the river, make it look nice for the cameras, and then completely forget about the river as soon as the events are over; and that's why Parisians are so upset. Not to mention the fact that host cities usually lose money on the Olympic investment in the long run.
As a part of this vow to clean the river, French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo have promised to jump in the Seine and go for a swim before the games kick off.
This will "prove" how clean and safe the water is.
That swim was supposed to happen this past Sunday, along with the poop protest which would've happened upstream about 15 minutes beforehand, but the river, after heavy rainfall in May, is now, once again, full of sewage.
Now, I'm not entirely sure why Paris would've even thought to open up the Seine for the open water Olympic events. It's been illegal to swim in the Seine for over 100 years simply due to the fact that it's so polluted.
Putting all that aside, the events are happening. They at least haven't been called off yet, and the observation bleachers have already been built. However, the river plunge promised by Macron and Hidalgo, along with the poop protest, has been postponed until July 15 due to this new sewage leak caused by the rainfall.
Here's what it looked like from the ground on Sunday, which was supposed to be "poop day."
So we'll have to wait until next month before Parisians poop upstream in front of Macron and Hidalgo's swim in the Seine.
