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Under a blue sky, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the Seine this week to applause from hundreds of onlookers, many of whom had worked on the years-long project to clean up the river for Olympic swimming events.

The stunt made worldwide headlines with just days to go before the opening of the games, boosting the already high international profile of the 65-year-old green crusader who has been mayor since 2014. She was re-elected to a second term in 2020.

Yet before Hidalgo’s long-promised swim, a social media campaign spread under the hashtag #jechiedanslaseine (“I poop in the Seine”) with people pledging to defecate to express their dislike for the mayor and her politics. “They have put us in the shit, so now it’s up to them to swim in our shit,” read a dedicated website.

This campaign displayed the often immoderate hatred that the Socialist mayor inspires among some Parisians, who rail against her drastic reduction of car traffic and imposition of rent controls. The first female mayor of Paris ranks among the country’s least popular politicians — a recent poll showed a 70 per cent disapproval rating — and her presidential bid in 2022 was catastrophic.

Hidalgo, however, has laughed off the poop campaign, according to people who work for her, and beamed after executing a confident crawl in the Seine. The French government has spent around €1.4bn to upgrade infrastructure to hold the triathlon and marathon swimming Olympics events in the river.

“It was a dream and now it’s a reality,” she said. “After the games we will have swimming in the Seine for all Parisians.”

Pierre Rabadan, a former professional rugby player who works as Hidalgo’s sports adviser, says he has never seen her publicly display her feelings about the vitriol. “In the harsh world of politics, if you show weakness, people will exploit any chink in the armour,” he observes. “She is combative, a bit like a wrestler, and very determined to follow through on her ideas.”

The spotlight will now be on Hidalgo and Paris as it hosts an ambitious yet risky version of the Olympics. One risk will be the extravagant opening ceremony with athletes on an armada of boats, which a security expert called a “criminal folly” since it would be impossible to police.

The French capital is also seeking to hold a more sustainable, affordable Olympics — in order to slash greenhouse gas emissions only two arenas have been built. Most events will be held at temporary venues at historic monuments in the city centre, causing major disruption for residents.

Hidalgo’s twin missions as mayor have been to give Paris a radical green makeover and keep the city accessible to middle and lower-income people by investing billions in social housing, often through buying properties and converting them.

Her dedication to the green cause has made her famous abroad where she is more respected at appearances at the UN and COP climate conferences than at home, where she is criticised for poor city management and degraded public finances.

Born near Cadiz, Spain to an electrician father and a seamstress mother, Hidalgo moved to Lyon as a child and became a French citizen as a teenager. Her first job was as a labour inspector for the government.

A convinced social democrat, she went into politics in the mid-1990s as an adviser to various ministers at a national level. In 2001, she was elected on a Socialist list to the Paris city council in the 15th arrondissement on the left bank, where she still lives. She was the longtime number two to her predecessor as socialist mayor Betrand Delanoë, and succeeded him in 2014.

Attitudes towards her hardened among some Parisians in 2016 when she got rid of a highway running along the Seine and turned the quays into a leafy pedestrian zone now enjoyed by cyclists and people out for runs or strolls.

“She’s had very extreme policies against car drivers, and by extension, against people living in the banlieues,” said Pierre Chasseray of the pro-car lobbying group 40 millions d’automobilistes (40mn drivers).

The city has built 1,500km of bike lanes recently, hiked parking prices for SUVs, and banned cars from major arteries like the Rue de Rivoli, reserving them mostly for cyclists.

In City Hall, where she is in coalition with Greens and Communists, Hidalgo has a “reputation for being irascible”, says Green councillor Alexandre Florentin, who nevertheless says he admires her. She has bridled at any suggestion that she is not “the most green mayor the planet has ever seen”.

Environmental groups have criticised Hidalgo and the Olympic organisers for “greenwashing” with a claim to minimise waste while being sponsored by drinks company Coca-Cola, a major generator of plastic. Her fierce rival on the city council, the rightwing politician Rachida Dati, accused her of wasting public money in the so-called Tahiti Gate scandal last year when she took a week-long trip there only to scrap a visit to the competition site for Olympics surfing.

Hidalgo, however, remains defiant. “If there weren’t the Games, we wouldn’t have gotten to this moment,” she said of swimming in the Seine. “They were an accelerator that directed all our energies towards an objective.” Whether Parisians like it or not.

leila.abboud@ft.com, sarah.white@ft.com, kenza.bryan@ft.com

For the past 18 months, marketing expert Angela Wong has criss-crossed south-east Asia working from Airbnbs, hotels and beaches — so in theory, new digital nomad visas from a region famous for warm weather and cheap living costs should be a boon. 

In May, Thailand extended visas for self-employed remote workers from 60 days to five years, with each stay limited to 180 days, also allowing visa holders to bring spouses and children. Indonesia has offered a one-year temporary residence permit for remote workers. The Philippines has promised to introduce a digital nomad visa this year.

But for those able to rock up on a tourist visa, formal applications were not worth the effort, Wong said. “Why go through an application process that requires forms, evidence of employment, bank statements that take time to complete and months to approve when I could be on my next flight to Bangkok tomorrow morning?” she said. 

Wong’s experience highlights the difficulties faced by countries seeking to take advantage of the uptick in people wanting to work remotely. Digital nomads should boost local economies with their spending, but many stay for short periods of time. Governments are keen to entice skilled foreign workers to stay — and spend — for longer.

While Italy, Portugal, Estonia, Greece, Malta and Spain all offer digital nomad visas, south-east Asia, a popular tourist destination long attractive to budget travellers, has lagged behind, said Brittany Loeffler, co-founder of Nomads Embassy, an online organisation promoting and assisting aspiring digital nomads. 

“The region has fairly challenging approval systems compared to countries in Europe,” she said. “South-east Asian governments have been picky, processing times are long and things like tax rules are unclear or change suddenly.” Precise data on the uptake of digital nomad schemes is scarce as governments do not consistently publish numbers, she added.

Indonesia’s E33G remote worker visa allows an individual to work for one year and bring family members. Under normal business or social visas, travellers could stay for up to six months in total, assuming they leave and re-enter every two months. 

Bas de Jong, an Indonesia-based founding partner for law firm PNB, said most digital nomads interested in the popular holiday destination of Bali opted for a single-entry business or tourist visa, and then did a visa run every two months to reset the clock.

“We have had some requests, [but it is] not overwhelming. The main struggling point for most [with the E33G visa] is the annual salary requirement of $60,000.”

Thailand’s new relaxed rules are expected to be similar to the six-month, multiple-entry visa, whose requirements include $5,500 in a bank account and reserved accommodation. 

Nikorndej Balankura, director-general of Thailand’s information department and foreign ministry spokesperson, said adapting the visas would facilitate economic development and promote tourism. The government added that other measures, such as an e-visa system and the establishment of a visa policy committee, would improve efficiency.

But Sutharm Valaisathien, a Bangkok-based senior partner at international law firm ILCT, said that they had not seen much demand. Thailand wants “to attract more foreign experts in tech, which Thailand is missing”, he added. 

While Malaysia launched the Rantau Nomad Pass in 2022, the rules have been stringently applied. “The application has to be really strong and they specifically want people in IT and digital services,” said Sarah Huang, a partner at Peter Huang & Richard in Malaysia.

Malaysia Digital Economy Corp, a government agency, said it expanded the eligibility criteria in June from tech and digital professionals to include fields such as legal counsel, technical writers, business development managers, public relations professionals and accountants. The minimum income requirement for these non-digital talents is $60,000 per year.

MDEC said the Nomad Pass had received 3,218 applications, of which 1,506 were approved. The top five countries of origin were Russia, Pakistan, the UK, Japan and Australia.

“This move enhances the accessibility of the DE Rantau Nomad Pass to a broader range of professionals, putting Malaysia on par with other countries that offer digital nomad visas,” the agency said.

The governments of Indonesia and the Philippines did not respond to requests for comment.

Faustine Schricke, who has been living and working in Bali for 14 years, said Indonesia’s government had struggled to find a proper solution for people wanting to work remotely. “You still see a lot of visa runs as a lot of the rules are confusing,” she said. Many Russians arrived in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, most on tourist visas.

Ee Ming Toh, a 32-year-old Singaporean freelancer, became a digital nomad after facing high rental prices in the city-state. While Singapore is her base, she has worked in Malaysia and Vietnam this year and intends to head to Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and Nepal in the next few months.

“This arrangement works best for me,” she said, complaining of the hassle of “more complicated visas”.

Wong, the marketing expert, holds a similar view. “What digital nomads really want is a visa that is valid for six to 12 months and is effectively a long-term tourist visa. They are happy to pay a [reasonable] fee . . . and complete a simple application form.

“The minute you have to start providing proof of income, background checks and the like — forget it.”