A defiant act of timely defecation is poised to give voice to the frustrated ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
As recently highlighted by CBS News, among others, the Seine River is the locale for this Paris Olympics-embroiling protest. Following extensive rain in the region, it was reported earlier this month that elevated E. coli levels had been detected in the river, all while the kickoff to the Olympics is less than two months away.
Olympic officials, meanwhile, have continued to publicly express confidence that planned events in the river will carry on as planned. The opening ceremony for this year's games is set for July 26, while the first Seine-set proceedings are currently on the books for July 30.
"We are confident that we will swim in the Seine this summer," Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi said earlier this month, per the Associated Press.
This past Sunday, June 23, was originally set to see Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo actually hitting the water herself as a public show of confidence. Simultaneously, a do-your-business-in-the-Seine protest was scheduled to interrupt the stunt, complete with a website on which visitors could calculate when, exactly, they would need to engage in their respective act to ensure "your gift arrives on June 23."
Hidalgo, however, has since pushed back her planned swim to next month. Seemingly, the protest itself has also been delayed, though that is not entirely clear as of this writing.
"I shit in the Seine on June 23," reads the aforementioned site associated with this movement of movements. Elsewhere on the site, which had not announced new protest plans at the time of this article's publication, the underlying aim of the demonstration was summarized as follows:
Because after putting us in shit, it's up to them to bathe in our shit
France is estimated to have spent almost $1.5 billion on a river clean-up project tied to the Olympics.
