“Quality superior to the original”.. What is the truth about hundreds of Italians ordering Fiat cars from an Algerian factory?

Pages on social networking sites in Algeria published news attributed to Al-Shorouk TV, stating that hundreds of Italians had placed orders to purchase Fiat cars from the Oran factory due to the quality of its manufacturing, which “exceeded Italian factories.”

The news, which appeared to be produced by the Algerian Al-Shorouk channel, stated, “Hundreds of Italians are placing orders to purchase Fiat cars from the Oran factory due to the quality of its manufacturing, which exceeds the Italian factories.”

However, these posts were spread as a joke, and Al-Shorouk Channel did not publish similar news.

In December of last year, the Italian company Fiat, a subsidiary of the Stellantis group, opened a car assembly plant in Oran, western Algeria.

“We completed a factory in a record time of one year, with a production capacity of 90,000 cars per year, which indicates our confidence in the Algerian market,” Carlos Tavarez, CEO of Stellantis Group, confirmed at the opening ceremony.

The ceremony was attended by the Algerian Minister of Industry, Ali Aoun, who explained that “the factory will start producing 50,000 cars per year, reaching 80,000 cars in 2026, with the creation of 1,200 jobs,” considering that the Fiat factory is “the starting point for a real car industry in Algeria.”

A sarcastic post

But the claim that the Italians want to buy cars from Algerian factories is nothing but humorous news, and some pages quickly reported it as true.

What raises doubt about the veracity that the Algerian Al-Shorouk channel published it is the presence of several linguistic errors in it, and by searching the channel’s accounts it becomes clear that it has not published any similar news in the recent period.

According to what was signed by Agence France-Presse journalists, the news was first published on the Facebook page of a person named Murad Biar.

Murad describes his page as a “satirical political page,” and the page constantly publishes humorous news that mocks the political and social conditions in the country.