Access to information, and the free circulation of information, is an elementary right for every citizen. In a move to strengthen and enlarge the scope of this fundamental public freedom, Mediapart has created a website dedicated to the publication of information of public interest, and which would otherwise remain hidden. Launched this Thursday March 10th, it is called FrenchLeaks, and is introduced here by Mediapart editor François Bonnet.
(Go to FrenchLeaks by clicking here)
Our new site, named with an amicable nod to WikiLeaks with which Mediapart is a new media partner, is a tool for widening public access to information in France. Its guiding objective is quite simply to re-establish the principle of the right of access to information that is of public interest, a right which is all too often abused by those in a position of power, whether political or economic.
FrenchLeaks is a whistle-blowing site. Because its contents concern public affairs, exposure should be the rule, and secrecy the exception. Any document that concerns the futures of peoples, nations and societies are worthy of public dissemination so that citizens can form an opinion, judge the evidence, make choices and take action to influence public affairs and government policies.
FrenchLeaks is a documentary base for texts, images, sound recordings and films. It is firstly concerned with placing in the public domain contents that have first been the subject of investigation by Mediapart journalists. For its launch, we have posted several important Mediapart investigations, concerning the Karachi affair, the so called ‘Butler tapes' recordings (click audio, right) that sparked the L'Oréal-Bettencourt scandal, along with numerous confidential documents that Mediapart has gained access to in its exclusive investigations into the French banking world and the Bolloré group. These will soon be followed by further documents and reports already cited in Mediapart investigations.
But FrenchLeaks is also there to help members of the public knock down unjustified walls of silence. The site allows sources to transmit, in complete security and confidentiality, documents of public interest which will be placed online after a preliminary investigation by our journalists working to strict professional guidelines.
The digital revolution has given the means to reinforce the right to information. The creation of participative media has created new models in which the readers are associated with the contents, allowing them to contribute, alert and inform.
