2024 Paris Poop Protest

Overview

Paris Poop Protest, also known as Parisians' Olympic Pooping Protest, refers to a protest of angry Parisians threatening to cause a major stink ahead of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, which revolved around people defecating into the Seine River at roughly the same time that French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo planned to swim in the river to prove it was safe for athletes to compete in its waters. Citizens were largely angry that France had spent over 1 billion euros attempting the cleanup campaign to showcase the river in the games, which is notoriously polluted due to its connection to the Paris sewage system. The protest, under the hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin, was expected to occur on June 23rd, 2024, while Macron and Hidalgo were to swim in the Seine to affirm the water was clean, but the event was called off days before for "political reasons."

Background

On May 23rd, 2024, Parisians started an online campaign^[1] under the hashtag "#JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin" to incentivize people to flush their poops at the same time on June 23rd while France’s President Emanuel Macron and Paris’ Mayor Anne Hidalgo swim the Seine River. The protest aimed to warn people of the river’s polluted waters ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, as some swimming competitions were planned to take place in the Seine.

One of the earliest mentions of the protest was posted on May 23rd by X^[2] / Twitter user @Abdokro in which they shared an image captioned "CROTTE EN SEINE 2024" (Poop in the Seine) inviting people to poo close to the place where President Emanuel Macron and Mayor Anne Hidalgo would swim. The post (seen below) amassed more than 2,900 likes and 830 reposts in a month.

Developments

June 23rd Paris Poop Protest

The "Paris Poo Protest" was postponed after it was announced^[3] on June 23rd, 2024, that President Emmanuel Macron and Mayor Anne Hidalgo would not swim in the river because of “political reasons.” The dip on the Seine was rescheduled to occur on July 15th, a week before the official opening of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

Online Reactions

The protest sparked a series of memes and jokes on social media as people eagerly expected the excessive amount of poop to appear in the Seine River. For instance, on June 22nd, 2024, TikToker^[4] @zozomccormack posted an explanation video about the Paris Poop Protest (seen below, left), which amassed over 45 million plays and 4.5 million likes in three days.

On May 31st, TikTok^[5] user @jilrockproduction posted an AI-generated version of Macron as a Skibidi Toilet character floating in the Seine river (seen below, right), which garnered roughly 229,000 plays and 3,600 likes in a month.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References