Journaliste et responsable du pôle politique de Mediapart.
En charge de l’animation de la couverture éditoriale sur les extrêmes droites. Pour nous écrire : extremedroite@mediapart.fr
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.
Representatives of the pro- and anti-independence camps of France’s strife-torn Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia on Saturday announced they had reached an agreement for a package of institutional and economic reforms aimed at defusing the volatile situation on the archipelago, where 14 people died in a separatist revolt last year. It includes the creation of a state of New Caledonia, but which would remain a part of France. “We’ve given work to jurists for the next twenty years,” jokingly commented one negotiator. Ellen Salvi reports.
For culture minister Rachida Dati the stakes this summer could not be much higher. She is overseeing legislation on the reform of public broadcasting – which got off to a bad start on Monday when the National Assembly voted not to discuss it - has been taking a close personal interest in impending moves to change the electoral system in Paris, and is facing her own legal troubles in an ongoing criminal investigation. Indeed, these next ten days will be critical for the culture minister as she seeks to fulfil her dream; that of being mayor of Paris. As Ilyes Ramdani and Ellen Salvi report, her intention to be a candidate for the high-profile position at next year's elections is as clear as it is feared within her own political camp, where her methods continue to divide opinion.
At the beginning of last week the far-right politician Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzling European Parliament funds and immediately banned from running for public office for five years, ruling her out of the 2027 presidential contest. Her party, Rassemblement National, yesterday held a public protest against the court's ruling. In between there have been all kinds of wild claims that this judicial decision was somehow undermining democracy. In this op-ed article, Mediapart's Antton Rouget and Ellen Salvi argue that these post-verdict attacks on the very idea of justice should not be taken lightly. Across the world, they say, the far-right is stepping up its attempts to tear down democratic checks and balances, and to challenge the rule of law.
Four years after submitting a major report for the French government on colonialism and the Algerian War, the leading French historian Benjamin Stora reflects on the unprecedented deterioration in relations that currently exists between Paris and Algiers. It is the “most serious crisis since independence” he tells Mediapart, and regrets the fact that French politicians have failed to embrace the gains of anti-colonialism. The academic also says that France is undergoing a realignment of the Right towards the stance of the far-right. Interview by Ellen Salvi.
The French overseas territory of New Caledonia, situated in the south-west of the Pacific Ocean, was last year plunged into chaos over a move by Paris to introduce an electoral reform that weakened the political clout of parties of the indigenous, and largely pro-independence, Kanak population. Violent protests over the reform erupted last May, after which at least 14 people died in the clashes, which also left the archipelago’s economy reeling. Mediapart's Ellen Salvi returned to New Caledonia at the end of 2024 where she met with the Kanak population in Saint-Louis, a hotbed of the insurrection and subsequently the target of a repressive crackdown. She reports here on how the inhabitants, despite their anger, sadness and fatigue, remain determined to pursue the Kanak cause for independence.
In the summer of 2022, France's richest man Bernard Arnault was panicking at the prospect of an MP from the radical-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party taking charge of the Finance Committee at the National Assembly. The boss of the LVMH luxury goods group apparently feared that as chair of the influential committee the politician would be able to get access to his tax details. Representatives for the billionaire then requested that his personal tax records be classified as a state secret. But as Fabrice Arfi, Yann Philippin, Antton Rouget and Ellen Salvi report, the authorities balked at this extraordinary request and ultimately rejected it.
After expressing his intention of “personally” involving himself in seeking a solution to the crisis in France’s South Pacific territory of New Caledonia, where tensions were ignited earlier this year after a move by president Emmanuel Macron to reform the electoral register to the detriment of the pro-independence movement of the indigenous Kanak people, the new French prime minister, Michel Barnier, was forced into a U-turn by Macron, who doggedly refuses to recognise errors in his approach to the crisis, in which 13 people have died. Ellen Salvi reports.
The composition of the new French government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier was decided during all-male meetings between political representatives of the conservative and centre-right parties. And it shows, write Mediapart’s co-editor Lénaïg Bredoux and political correspondent Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article. There are no women in charge of the most powerful ministries, namely those of the interior, defence, justice, economy and foreign affairs, while some members of Barnier’s government have opposed the inclusion of women’s right to abortion into the French Constitution, and are hostile towards LGBTQI+ rights. Meanwhile, the cause of promoting equality between men and women has been demoted from full-time ministerial status to that of a government department.
Michel Barnier, 73, the former European Union commissioner and Brexit negotiator, a member of France’s conservative Les Républicains party, was on Thursday appointed by President Emmanuel Macron as the country's new prime minister. The move came after several days of discussions between Macron and the conservatives and the far-right, and two months after snap parliamentary elections produced a hung parliament, but in which the leftwing coalition, the Nouveau Front Populaire emerged as the largest single political force. Barnier’s appointment is a snub to the message of the urns, writes Mediapart political correspondent Ellen Salvi, and does nothing to resolve a situation which the French president is solely responsible for.
Emmanuel Macron’s dissolution of parliament destroyed his centre-right party’s previous relative majority, and in the ensuing elections it was overtaken by the broad coalition of leftwing parties, the Nouveau Front Populaire, which now represents the largest bloc in the National Assembly. But despite the credibility the French president has lost with his roll of the dice, and despite the unpopularity of his Renaissance party as expressed in the urns, many among the Macron camp still apparently believe they have the upper hand in French politics, writes Mediapart political affairs correspondent Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article. As difficult negotiations began this week to form a new government, the depleted Macronists have even been lecturing opponents, and notably the Left, on their conditions for supposedly sharing power.
A collapse in support for the centre-right camp of President Emmanuel Macron, a stronger leftwing alliance and a potentially game-changing breakthrough by the far-right Rassemblement National ... as voters head for the ballot box today for the first round of what is both an uncertain and an historic parliamentary election, Mediapart examines what is at stake for the main political groups taking part. Mathieu Dejean, Pauline Graulle, Youmni Kezzouf, Ilyes Ramdani and Ellen Salvi report.
Following the huge success of the French far-right Rassemblement National party (the former Front National) in the polling on Sunday to elect members to the new assembly of the European Parliament, President Emmanuel Macron has called a surprise snap election of France’s national parliament, due in three weeks’ time. In this op-ed article, Mediapart political correspondent Ellen Salvi argues why Macron’s strategy, adopted since 2017, of presenting himself as the only alternative to the far-right has reached its limit, and now threatens a major disaster for the country.
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Six mois après les révoltes en Nouvelle-Calédonie, Mediapart est parti à la rencontre des indépendantistes kanak, en tribu, dans les quartiers populaires de Nouméa, mais aussi en « brousse », au nord de la capitale. Avec pour objectif de donner la parole à celles et ceux qui en sont d’ordinaire privés.
Mediapart lance « L’Œil de la recherche », une série de chroniques pour analyser les dynamiques des extrêmes droites françaises, européennes et mondiales. Loin des petites phrases, des coups de com’ et des bavardages.
Reportage, analyses, enquêtes... Dans le cadre du renforcement de sa couverture éditoriale sur les extrêmes droites, Mediapart a choisi d’investir deux postes d’observation dans lesquels elles sont au pouvoir : au gouvernement en Italie et à la tête de certaines municipalités dans le sud de la France.
Dans un contexte de plus en plus alarmant, Mediapart renforce encore sa couverture des extrêmes droites et lance une newsletter dédiée dans laquelle vous pourrez retrouver, chaque mois, nos enquêtes, nos reportages, nos analyses, mais aussi des rendez-vous inédits afin de casser la vitrine de la « normalisation ».
L’enquête préliminaire contre X..., ouverte en janvier 2013 à la suite d’une plainte pour « détournement de biens publics », déposée par un militant écologiste contre le député et maire UMP de Nice, a été classée sans suite le jeudi 7 novembre. Le plaignant pointe du doigt « les étonnantes conclusions des enquêteurs ».
