Qualité de la vie, où es-tu ?

Quality of life, where are you?

On November 18, 2024, with the ministerial reshuffle carried out by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a Ministry of the Environment and Quality of Life was created, whose “Quality of Life” mission consists of monitoring and taking charge of citizens’ concerns and proposals relating to the improvement of the living environment, in collaboration with the sectors concerned. This ministry includes a sub-directorate responsible for developing measures, in particular, to combat noise pollution and for ensuring their implementation. A little more than a month later, it was a Thursday evening, December 26, 2024, “the town of Mascara was the scene of a deafening nighttime noise caused by large-engine motorcycles,” wrote the El Watan correspondent.

What is it about? “Motorcycles, roaring with thunderous noises, “pollute” whether during the day or evening, plunging neighborhoods into an unbearable cacophony and provoking the anger of many residents.” These are not isolated excesses, he clarified. “In some cases, owners of large motorcycles are paid to participate in wedding festivities and cause deafening noises and other dangerous maneuvers. These noisy gatherings, often accompanied by motorcycle parades, transform neighborhoods into zones of noisy agitation, to the great despair of local residents.” Where is the ”Quality of life”? It’s not over: “Added to this is the noise pollution caused daily in all communities by small-displacement motorcycles, whose owners voluntarily remove the silencer from the exhaust.” It’s still not over yet: “Cars with tinted windows, playing music at full volume and carrying out rapid maneuvers, crisscross neighborhoods late at night, disturbing the tranquility of residents.” Is there an urban exception to this observation? Nothing is less certain.

In Algiers, noisy bikers take their pleasure passing under the Facultés tunnel and causing as much noise pollution as possible with their motorbikes, as if they were taking part in a competition for the loudest decibels. With complete impunity, they have no regard for the law which prohibits these practices, nor for the State which produced this law, nor for the citizen who suffers from the noise. Very recently, a beautiful musical evening was organized in central Algiers for the celebration of November 1, 1954 which allows us to pay tribute (and it is never enough) to our glorious chouhada as well as to the mujahideen who liberated us from colonialism after 130 years of French occupation. Unfortunately there was an intruder: the volume of the infernal sound which made the windows of the homes vibrate. Was it fatal?
MR