Né en 1952, journaliste professionnel depuis 1976. D’abord à Rouge (1976-1978), puis quelques mois au Matin de Paris et, surtout, au Monde pendant vingt-cinq ans (1980-2005).
Cofondateur et président de Mediapart depuis sa création en 2008.
Auteur d’une trentaine d'ouvrages (bibliograhie disponible sur Wikipedia en français).
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.
A Paris judge has imposed a gagging order on Mediapart which prohibits it from publishing new revelations in its investigation into the highly questionable political practices of Gaël Perdriau, mayor of Saint-Étienne. The Mediapart investigation has previously revealed the blackmailing of the town’s deputy mayor, a rival of Perdriau's, using a compromising ‘sex tape’ video. As Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel details here, the gagging order, which was made at the request of Perdriau and without allowing Mediapart any legal opportunity to oppose it, is an unprecedented attack against the freedom of the press in France.
Maurice Olender, the erudite historian and literary editor, died in Brussels on October 27th at the age of 76. Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel pays tribute here to his friend, a free thinker born into a family of survivors of the WWII genocide of the Jews, who unceasingly sounded the alarm over the gangrene of racism and those behind it.
On July 6th, a French court ruled against the state over its attempted search of Mediapart’s premises on February 4th 2019, which it found was “neither necessary in a democratic society, nor proportionate to the objective sought”. The ruling, which was notably severe for the Paris public prosecution services, further enshrines the freedom to inform and the protection of sources, writes Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this analysis of the case.
In the decisive second round of voting in France's legislative elections this Sunday June 19th, a vote for the NUPES alliance of the Left and environmentalists is both ethically essential and a political necessity, argues Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this opinion article. To vote in this way, he writes, is to reject the duplicity of a divisive presidency and to embrace political change via a parliamentary route.
Following a divided, and for some, catastrophic, showing in the presidential elections in April, the principal parties that make up the French Left have this week agreed an electoral alliance ahead of parliamentary elections to be held in June. In this opinion article, Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel hails the pact as a vital opportunity, as welcome as it was unexpected, to counterbalance the enormous political power of the re-elected president.
The far-right has never been so close to power. And given that it is the worst enemy of equality, rights and freedom, voting against its candidate on Sunday April 24th is the only anti-fascist option in the French presidential election, writes Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. But, he says, it will be a painful act, because the other name on the ballot paper is that of the person who is chiefly responsible for this catastrophe: Emmanuel Macron.
The death of Alain Krivine on March 12th, at the age of 80, saw the passing of the last of the leading militants of the May 1968 revolts in France who remained faithful to the ideals of his youth, mixing anti-imperialism, anti-Stalinism and anti-capitalism. To this fidelity, writes Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel, his personality added a manifest integrity, which ran counter to the lust for power and party sectarianism.
The invasion of Ukraine is now forcing the world to face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Russian imperialism. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that what is needed is a surge of international solidarity to defend and help the Ukrainian people who are resisting that aggression.
More than all other the former European imperial powers, France continues to be profoundly shaped by the issue of colonialism, which both determines its relations with the world and fashions how it sees itself. In this article written for the latest issue of the 'Revue du crieur', Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel looks at France's continuing relationship with its colonial past, a subject often suppressed by its political elites on both the Right and Left. He argues that the country's continuing reluctance to confront its imperial history has made it blind to its multiculturalism and diversity and has encouraged the renaissance of neo-fascism.
The scale of protests across France this summer against the policies being deployed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic is the price being paid by the head of state for his authoritarian, lying and irresponsible presidency, says Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. Never, he argues, has the issue of democracy been so relevant - and so urgent.
After he was slapped earlier this week in a town in south-east France by a man shouting a medieval royalist battle cry, President Emmanuel Macron described the assault as an “incident” that should be “relativised”, and that “all is well”. On the contrary, writes Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this opinion article, all is going badly, and the slap illustrates the far-right violence that has been set loose by the cynicism and irresponsibility of the Macron presidency.
The French Republic should not be subject to the demands of the police. Yet this democratic principle is under challenge from the demonstration held by police officers on Wednesday, May 19th. Organisers of the protest in front of the National Assembly in Paris, which was supported by members of the current government, the far right and the two historic parties of the Left, are demanding minimum sentences for anyone found guilty of attacks on police officers. This undermines one of the key principles of the French Republic, that the police force is there to serve all citizens, and not to seek law changes in its own interest or the interests of the government of the day, argue Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel and political correspondent Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article.
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Mediapart’s journalists also use their blogs, and participate in their own name to this space of debates, by confiding behind the scenes of investigations or reports, doubts or personal reactions to the news.
The French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, the Bolloré company and its subsidiary Bolloré Africa Logistics have lost the final appeal in their case against Mediapart concerning a story about their business practices in Cameroon. In a judgement given on October 11th France's top appeal court, the Cour de Cassation, rejected their appeal and pointed to the “sufficiently factual basis” of the article written by Fanny Pigeaud.
Vincent Bolloré, la société Bolloré et sa filiale Bolloré Africa Logistics ont définitivement perdu le procès intenté à Mediapart à propos de leurs pratiques au Cameroun. Dans un arrêt du 11 octobre, la Cour de cassation a rejeté leur pourvoi en soulignant « la base factuelle suffisante » de l’enquête de Fanny Pigeaud.
Plaidoyer pour l’internationalisme et contre l’indifférence, « L’Épreuve et La Contre-épreuve » (Stock) questionne l’absence, notamment à gauche, de solidarité active avec le peuple ukrainien, comme hier avec le peuple syrien, face à l’agression impérialiste russe. En librairie le 14 septembre.
Dans un livre qui fera date, la juriste Marie Laure Morin propose de faire de l’hospitalité un droit fondamental afin de construire un droit des migrations qui rompe, enfin, avec des législations répressives qui violent les droits humains et menacent l’État de droit. J’ai volontiers accepté d’en écrire la préface.
La catastrophe, disait Walter Benjamin, c’est que tout continue comme avant. J’avais repris cet avertissement dans un livre paru l’automne dernier en vue de l’élection présidentielle. C’est peu dire qu’il vaut au lendemain de son premier tour où la politique de la présidence Macron et la division fratricide des gauches nous lèguent une extrême droite plus puissante que jamais.
Directeur de la publication : Edwy Plenel
Direction éditoriale : Stéphane Alliès et Carine Fouteau
Le journal MEDIAPART est édité par la Société Editrice de Mediapart (SAS).
Durée de la société : quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ans à compter du 24 octobre 2007.
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