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.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been elected as leader of the conservative opposition party, the UMP. Sarkozy’s bid for the party leadership is the first step in his ultimate aim of standing for the French presidency in elections due in 2017. But the former president has got off to a lukewarm start, with a weaker-than-expected victory in the party leadership race. More importantly, as Ellen Salvi writes in this analysis article, he now has an uphill road ahead, implicated in a number of judicial investigations and with political rivals waiting at the bends.
The fallout from a private lunch between President François Hollande’s chief of staff Jean-Pierre Jouyet and former President Nicolas Sarkozy's prime minister François Fillon last summer is threatening to develop into a full-blown scandal. At the meeting on June 24th Fillon is said to have asked the socialist administration to speed up legal investigations into his former boss and now political rival Sarkozy. Jouyet, who served in Fillon's right-wing government but who is a close personal friend of Hollande, later told two journalists of the conversation. When the reporters published the story in a book last week Jouyet at first denied the claim then backtracked and insisted that Fillon had indeed asked him to intervene in the affair. Fillon, however, who like Sarkozy wants to be the Right's 2017 presidential candidate, has angrily accused Jouyet of “lies” and says he is suing for defamation. Once more, say Stéphane Alliès, Ellen Salvi and Mathieu Magnaudeix, the Elysée finds itself at the centre of an embarrassing affair, this time with the president’s right-hand man in the firing line.
On Thursday French author Patrick Modiano was named as the 2014 recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. In its citation the Swedish Academy said the prize had been awarded to honour “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the Occupation”. It is, above all, recognition of 40 years of an obsessive quest, motivated by the fear of forgetting. Here Mediapart journalist Ellen Salvi, who spent five years at the Sorbonne in Paris studying Modiano's work and who has met the media-shy writer in person, shares her insight into the past influences and “previous lives” that have helped shape his writing.
In recent days six people have been placed under formal investigation in connection with the presidential election financial scandal that is rocking the main right-wing opposition party, the UMP. Judges are investigating a system of fake invoicing by communications firm Bygmalion in 2012 in which they unlawfully billed the UMP rather than Nicolas Sarkozy's election team for work they did organising campaign rallies. This was apparently done to avoid the Sarkozy campaign breaching strict rules on how much presidential candidates can spend. This growing scandal is now potentially a major threat to Sarkozy's political comeback, though the former president himself claims he knew nothing of the affair or even the name Bygmalion at the time. Here Mathilde Mathieu, Ellen Salvi and Marine Turchi give a guide to the main players in the so-called Bygmalion affair and the issues at stake.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy appeared in a television interview on Sunday in his first public appearance since announcing his bid to become head of the conservative opposition UMP party, in a move to return as the party’s candidate in presidential elections due in 2017. Apart from his predictably harsh attack on President François Hollande’s record in office, Sarkozy on Sunday made a clear attempt to soften his image, not least among his own ranks, as an abrasive and self-centred figure, admitting to past “errors”, including the belief that “one can succeed alone”. For after his defeat in 2012, a number of members of his former government rounded on Sarkozy as being, variously, “impulsive”, “narcissistic”, “cut off from reality”, and “obsessed by money”. Ellen Salvi reports on the less-than-flattering appreciations of Sarkozy by those who knew him well, and the surprising turning of coats since his return to the fray.
Debts of nearly 80 million euros, a party leader who had to step down over an election funding scandal, warring factions, public attacks, leaked allegations that senior party figures and their relatives have been milking its finances for their own benefit and continuing scandals surrounding its talismanic figure Nicolas Sarkozy... France's main opposition party the UMP seems on the brink of a political abyss. Indeed, one senior figure in it has claimed that the right-wing party is “already dead”. Mathilde Mathieu, Ellen Salvi and Marine Turchi report on a party crisis that shows no sign of abating and could end in its destruction.
The head of the parliamentary group of France’s main opposition party, the conservative UMP, faces a stormy meeting with his MP colleagues on Tuesday after Mediapart’s revelations that, without informing them, he secretly lent their cash-strapped party 3 million euros from what are largely public funds destined for financing the group’s parliamentary activities. The scandal has outraged many within the UMP, and follows Mediapart’s earlier revelations that the party used faked invoices to hide 17 million euros of illegal overspending on the 2012 presidential election campaign of its candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy. Fabrice Arfi, Mathilde Mathieu and Ellen Salvi report.
Paris is about to have its first woman mayor in the city's long history. But the certainty that either socialist Anne Hidalgo or right-wing candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet will take the reins of the French capital after the two rounds of local elections that start this Sunday masks the fact that most French towns and cities will be run by a man whichever of the main parties wins the local vote. An examination of the mayoral election candidates by Mediapart has revealed that the great majority are male, white – and not very young. Lénaïg Bredoux and Ellen Salvi report on the slow progress made by the country's two major mainstream parties in making their politicians more representative of the populace.
The ailing French car industry has given President François Hollande and his government their first major social and industrial challenge since coming to power in May. Earlier this month, the country’s largest manufacturer, PSA Peugeot Citroën, announced it was to slash 8,000 jobs and close its major plant at Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, ending months of rumour and company denials. This week, just as the new cash-strapped socialist government announced a modest plan of aid for the car-making sector, a programme described by one expert as "trying to put out an immense fire with a glass of water", PSA revealed first-half losses of 819 million euros. Meanwhile, PSA workers mounted a demonstration outside the company’s Paris headquarters (photo) to vent their anger at the future lay-offs and their frustration at the government’s hitherto refusal to block the plan. Ellen Salvi and Stéphane Alliès report on a disastrous week for what was once a proud flagship of French industry.
It is the first big social test of President François Hollande's new government. The giant French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroën has announced it is shedding 8,000 jobs, including the closure of a plant at Aulnay-sous-Bois on the outskirts of Paris. Unions have described the news as a “declaration of war”and workers have pledged to fight the factory closure all the way. President Hollande has said the cuts are “unacceptable” and told Peugeot to re-negotiate with employees. But the new government has itself come under fire from workers and unions for not putting enough pressure on the car manufacturer. Mediapart's Rachida El Azzouzi and Ellen Salvi went to Aulnay to meet the workforce.
The French minimum wage, the Salaire minimum interprofessionnel de croissance or Smic, went up by 2% on July 1st, causing a political row. Some say the rise is an extra burden on businesses. Critics on the Left say the increase is far too small. But what impact will it have in practice on the purchasing power of those on or slightly above this basic level of income? How do you live on little more than 1,000 euros a month? Mediapart interviewed people living in different parts of the country on or close to the minimum wage to find out. Valentine Oberti, Ellen Salvi and Rachida El Azzouzi report.
When he was elected in 2007, French president Nicolas Sarkozy presented an ambitious programme to increase home ownership in France, raising the number of French households that are owner occupiers from 57% to 70%. But five years on, despite introducing tax breaks and interest-free loan schemes, the figure has inched to just 58%, a similar increase to the previous five-year presidential term. Ellen Salvi reports on what went wrong.
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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 ».
