There was a time, not so long ago, when poodles shitting on the streets of Paris were considered to be the government’s biggest cultural problem. Oh the outrage…! All those beautiful, romantic areas (as depicted on Hollywood billboards) were full of tourists tripping over foul-smelling crap.
This upper-class excrement problem was seen as a veneer of capitalist decay – a French society so rich and comfy that its pups of leisure were entitled to defile the sidewalks.
Frustrated local councils tried lots of things including public shaming, severe fines, and ad campaigns about acting ‘in the public good’ but getting the French to fix the slow demise of cleanliness in their capital city has always been a struggle.
The French pay tax, you see, which means someone else should pick up the shit. It’s a great example of how people think an expensive ‘Big State’ works versus what happens in the real world.
Whose streets are cleaner – communities built on personal responsibility or those who rely on the government?
There’s something to be said for the power of an English side-eye, scowl, and eyebrow loft (which our culture inherited).
Here’s another lesson given to us by the dogs of Paris.
In desperation, one French town has begun experimenting with a ‘genetic passport for pooches’ in which a ‘DNA profile for dogs’ has been created to fine owners for shit found during council cleanups. It’s Digital ID for dogs. The idea was originally dropped over concerns it ‘hampered freedom’, but the post-Covid Passport world has reset its ethical boundaries and people shrugged it through the approvals process. Liberté, égalité, fraternité! has become, ‘Whatever…’
‘I can’t take all this shit anymore!’ growled the Mayor responsible for the PooPassport. While it’s easy to sympathise with the frustration, another layer of digital tyranny has been born to solve the problem of laziness and entitlement in the worst possible way. We make this same mistake, not with dog shit but with pretty much everything else. From education to speech, from tricky tax returns to the weather – digital tyranny will save us…
Paris never solved its dog shit problem.
Instead, it has added a whole lot of new ones, including excrement floating down the Seine River.
Olympic swimmers have been left to grimace at the murky water, hoping they don’t pick up some disease from the Middle Ages on their way to a medal.
PR is pretty bad when various officials, including the Mayor of Paris, have to jump in the water to ‘prove’ it’s safe for athletes. What an excellent vote of confidence for ‘The Greenest Ever Games’!
Yes, that’s what they’re calling it, The Greenest Ever Games! after the city spent more than two years deporting third-world migrants from sidewalk slums – dumping them in rural villages. Macron has not been able to hide the burned out cars. Piles of trash. Streets that look like California’s zombie apocalypse. Marble monuments covered in Palestinian flags, Hamas logos, and the communist hammer and sickle. There are ebikes assaulting pedestrians and even the rats are too frightened to wander out of the sewers in case they get mugged.
Is the Seine cleaner and greener than Sydney Harbour where our Olympic athletes went for a paddle? No. Our wonderful array of sharks would suffocate if they were relocated to the fishless and faithless Seine. Sydney certainly didn’t need to engage in an extensive water restoration project to make the system ‘breathable’ for fish – and as far as I can recall, there were no protest groups trending #JeChieDansLaSeine (#IPooInTheSeine) in response to the cleanup. (The French hate Macron enough to defile their own river on the off chance it will end up on the President.) There’s been raw sewage flowing through ‘the most romantic city in the world’ for more than a hundred years and 1.5 billion euros later … well, let’s have a look at Macron after he comes out of the water.
The Mayor, and the French Sports Minister, could have saved themselves the flirtation with fate.
Heavy downpours have forced organisers to cancel the triathlon’s pre-race practice in the Seine due to – wait for it – water quality concerns. Athletes hoping to familiarise themselves with the course will have to do so on Google Maps.
Macron’s government promised the Seine would be safe, but as late as June, there were unsafe levels of E. coli and now, after all the rain, there’s a good chance athletes will be picking bits of raw sewage out of their hair. Macron also promised the streets of Paris would be safe. Needless to say, he failed on that promise as well.
I must admit, I did have a bit of a chuckle at athletes dutifully wearing face masks to protect themselves from Covid while preparing to take a dip in the Seine. It’s a bit like washing all your vegetables to get the chemicals off their skin and then dipping them in a Petri dish full of Salmonella. Oh well, let the games continue.
