Après un passage par Capital, 20 minutes, LCP puis, plus longuement, le site arretsurimages.net, j’ai rejoint Mediapart en novembre 2012, pour m’intéresser aux entreprises au sens large.
J’ai d’abord développé une certaine obsession pour l’évasion fiscale et l’optimisation du même nom, et je me consacre désormais au monde du travail et à ses enjeux, ainsi qu’aux mobilisations sociales : prud’hommes, chômage, retraites, manifs...
Je suis le coordinateur du service économie-social de Mediapart depuis septembre 2021.
Declaration of interest
In the interest of transparency towards its readers, Mediapart’s journalists fill out and make public since 2018 a declaration of interests on the model of the one filled out by members of parliament and senior civil servants with the High Authority for Transparency and Public Life (HATVP), a body created in 2014 after Mediapart’s revelations on the Cahuzac affair.
Disgraced French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac in April finally admitted holding a secret, tax-evading bank account abroad, the existence of which was first revealed by Mediapart in December 2012. Now Mediapart can lift some of the mystery that surrounded the complex web of structures which allowed Cahuzac to move his hidden funds across the globe, from Switzerland to Singapore via the Seychelles, allegedly with the help of a Dubai-based former board member of the Swiss bank Reyl & Co. Mathilde Mathieu, Fabrice Arfi and Dan Israel report.
In 2006, France introduced the total privatisation of three-quarters of its vast motorway network, leaving almost 9,000 kilometres under the management of three concession operators. A report this summer by the country’s national audit court, commissioned by a parliamentary finance commission, presents a damning picture of practices since the sell-off and calls for far tighter controls of the operators. Dan Israel reports.
The power of French presidents to nominate the heads of the country’s state-funded television channels and radio stations is to be removed under new legislation aimed at guaranteeing the independence of France’s publicly-owned broadcast media. But while the new law, expected to be approved by parliament and enacted before the end of the year, does away with the excesses of political interference introduced under the previous presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, it is hardly the clean sweep that the government proclaims. Dan Israel outlines the bill’s proposals and weighs the arguments for and against.
UBS and its subsidiary UBS France were earlier this year placed under formal investigation for conspiracy in illegal sales of banking services in a wide-ranging judicial probe into evidence suggesting the bank enabled wealthy French nationals to evade tax on assets deposited in undeclared Swiss accounts. Mediapart has gained exclusive access to documents that illustrate how UBS enticed wealthy French footballers to place their assets with the bank, and which raise further questions over its suspected complicity in tax fraud. Mathilde Mathieu, Michaël Hajdenberg and Dan Israel report.
On Friday the French arm of Swiss bank UBS was placed under formal investigation by judges carrying out a wide-ranging probe into allegations that it has enabled wealthy French nationals to evade paying tax in France on sums deposited in undeclared Swiss bank accounts. Mediapart has meanwhile seen evidence which suggests that, contrary to the bank's claims that any unlawful activities were carried out by a few individuals, some senior executives at the French subsidiary oversaw an organised system to record the opening of undeclared accounts. Dan Israel reports.
Nicolas Sarkozy's close political ally Claude Guéant is at the centre of a major political controversy over a mysterious payment made to him of 500,000 euros. The former interior minister has angrily denied that the bank transfer payment, unearthed by detectives investigating the alleged Libyan funding of Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign, relates to money from the former regime of Colonel Gaddafi. He insists the money came from the sale of two oil paintings by a 17th century Dutch artist. Yet art experts say the two paintings are worth nowhere near 500,000 euros. And if he did sell them abroad as suggested, Guéant appears not to have got the necessary authorisation from the ministry of culture. In another twist, the former civil servant claims other cash payments are explained by undeclared work bonuses he received from 2002 – yet this system of bonuses was abolished in 2001. Dan Israel reports on the tangled web surrounding Sarkozy's former right-hand man.
The still-unfolding scandal surrounding the secret foreign account of former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, first revealed by Mediapart last December, has rocked the French political establishment to its core. But it may not be the last such explosive revelation. For the private Geneva-based financial institution that Cahuzac used to manage his funds hidden abroad, Reyl & Cie, is alleged by several sources contacted by Mediapart to have provided its discreet services to other French personalities - including senior political figures. Dan Israel pieces together a secret and complex financial puzzle, with the help of insiders from the world of finance and banking in Geneva and Paris.
There was all the atmosphere of a joint press conference between heads of state when French President François Hollande and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt this month announced an agreement had been reached between the US search engine giant and the French press over Google’s use of article contents. Google will make a one-off payment of 60 million euros to fund development of the publishers' presence on the internet, while it will also offer to increase their online revenues using Google’s advertising platforms. However, as Dan Israel and Jérôme Hourdeaux report, what was presented as a "historic" compromise is in reality a long-term victory for Google over an ailing, cash-strapped press, while the details of the deal are, curiously, to remain secret.
French car manufacturers PSA Peugeot Citroën and Renault are facing a grave crisis, and figures just released for new car sales in France in 2012 underline the bleak prospects for the immediate future, with the lowest number of units sold since 1997. Dan Israel reports on the plight of an industry that is estimated to employ 700,000 people in France, and which must urgently find a strategy for survival amid what has become a Europe-wide 'carmageddon'.
Budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac has adopted a fresh strategy as he tries to defend himself against Mediapart's investigation that shows he had an undisclosed Swiss bank account until 2010. Cahuzac is trying to get the bank to waive its banking secrecy rules to confirm he held no such account – something the bank has so far refused to do. But as François Bonnet and Dan Israel point out, behind this apparent delaying tactic there is a clear conflict of interest between Cahuzac the budget minister and Cahuzac the private bank customer. Which is why, they argue, only an independent judicial investigation can get to the heart of the affair.
Jérôme Cahuzac, the budget minister accused of having a secret Swiss bank account until 2010, has amassed considerable wealth from his work as a hair transplant surgeon and consultant. Mediapart can reveal the name of the man who handles the minister's personal wealth, the ultra-discreet Hervé Dreyfus (see photo, right). Mediapart can also disclose it was Dreyfus to whom Cahuzac was talking during his now infamous telephone conversation when he was accidentally recorded talking about the Swiss account – whose existence he still continues to deny. Fabrice Arfi, Dan Israel, Mathilde Mathieu and Martine Orange investigate the financial background and contacts of France's under-fire budget minister.
