Paris Mayor Swears She'll Take A Dip In Seine Despite Pollution, Threats Of Poo Protests

We're just over two weeks away from the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and the condition of one of the Games' centerpieces — the Seine — is still up in the air amid concerns over pollution and threats of mass defecation protests.

But that won't deter the city's mayor who assured everyone that she still intends to take a dip in the famous river to prove it's squeaky clean.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo said earlier this year that she would swim in the river to prove to everyone that it was safe to do so. This even though, according to the BBC, swimming in the Seine has been banned since 1923 because it's filthy.  That seems as good of a reason as any.

However, over $1 billion has been spent on cleaning up the Seine to host some open-water swimming events in it, and that's why Hidalgo and French President Emmanuel Macron said they'd take a dip.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo says she still plans to swim in the Seine ahead of the Olympics. Pollution and poo protests be damned!. (Photo by Amaury Cornu / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP) (Photo by AMAURY CORNU/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)

Of course, unhappy French citizens were ready to drop some chocolate croissants in the river whenever the two politicians threw on their swimsuits.  However, both canceled their initial plans to do that, with Hidalgo saying the change was because of the dissolution of the National Assembly by French President Emmanuel Macron, thereby making the Seine not the priority, per CNN.

Sure, it was… it definitely wasn't the looming specter of a poo-test.

But now Hidalgo seems to be changing her mind again.

The Paris mayor told France Inter Radio that she would "dive in next week" and that by that time the river would be "depolluted, that’s for sure."

…I'm not so sure about that Anne.

Something tells me some disgruntled Frenchmen and French-laaaaaaaadies (as their beloved Jerry Lewis would say) are going to be loading up on Chalupas and for the next week, to, uh. "voice their displeasure."

I'm not sure how long it takes to clean an entire river, but I'm not sure how feasible it is to get it done in about two weeks. We'll see how this goes when the Games get underway later this month.