Bordeaux to enforce rules on noise and anti-social behaviour

An ‘anti-incivility team’ will soon be on alert in the city of Bordeaux in a bid to crack down on ‘uncivil’ behaviour, such as the illegal dumping of waste and nuisance noise.

The team is set to be operational this year (2024), confirmed Bordeaux (Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine) mayor Pierre Hurmic on January 18. It will focus on fighting “offences relating to cleanliness, illegal waste, noise, and compliance with the rules governing outdoor terraces”, he said.

The team will be formed of “around 10 officers from the municipal police", and will be supported by members of the waste and cleaning department. The officers will be able to issue fines and take statements, and will also be supported by the CCTV network team to help catch people in real-time.

Each year, 10 more officers will be recruited to the team, and the mayor also plans to strengthen the city’s CCTV system, which currently has more than 200 cameras.

The plan will also be shared with unions shortly, said Marc Etcheverry, municipal councillor in charge of terraces.

Mr Hurmic said: “I have given very clear instructions that cleanliness should be at the heart of this new brigade…It will be a valuable support for all the officers who work on a daily basis to resolve these problems.”

The mayor added that “living in our city requires a minimum of civic-mindedness”.

Bordeaux is not the first city to set up such a team; nearby town Talence set up a similar brigade in 2020, and has seen incidents of illegal waste dumping drop by 20% in less than a year.

Illegal waste

Illegal waste-dumping is a particular problem in France; the Association des Maires de France estimates that 63,000 tonnes of waste are illegally dumped each year.

People caught fly-tipping in France face the double sanction of a €135 fine and the cost of cleaning up. However, many professionals choose to take the risk of a potential fine over the certainty of paying to go to the dump.

Each commune in France has at least one dump assigned to it, and while this may not actually be in the commune, it will be free for most residents for most uses (not for asbestos, for example).

On the other hand, professionals and companies - such as building contractors - typically have to pay a fee according to the type and weight of the material they want to dump. The costs of daily trips to the dump can quickly mount up, prompting unscrupulous workers to choose other options.

Last year, the town of Mériel (Val-d'Oise) was among those to install cameras in a bid to catch people in the act. It came after Jean Michel, 76, the mayor of Signes (Var), tragically died in 2019 after being run over as he tried to stop a van illegally dumping rubble.

The shock over his death prompted other mayors to speak out about a rise in threats, intimidation and violence in their day-to-day work.

Similarly, several mayors have hit headlines in recent years for taking a hard line on illegal waste, including gathering up the mess and dumping it in front of the perpetrators’ homes, and sometimes posting about it on social media to further draw attention to the illegal act.

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