Fabrice Arfi

Co-responsable des enquêtes à Mediapart avec Michaël Hajdenberg.

#Presse Ancien reporter à Lyon Figaro (1999-2004), à 20 Minutes (2004-2005), co-fondateur de l'hebdomadaire Tribune de Lyon (2005-2007), j'ai également collaboré à l'AFP, au Monde, à Libération, au Parisien/Aujourd'hui en France, au Canard enchaîné...

#Livres Je suis l'auteur (ou co-auteur) de plusieurs ouvrages : La Troisième Vie (Seuil), Pas tirés d'affaires (Seuil), D'argent et de sang (Seuil), Avec les compliments du Guide (avec Karl Laske, chez Fayard), Le Sens des Affaires (Calmann-Lévy), Le Contrat (avec Fabrice Lhomme, chez Stock), L'Affaire Bettencourt, un scandale d'Etat (avec Fabrice Lhomme et la rédaction de Mediapart, chez Don Quichotte), L'Affaire Cahuzac, en bloc et en détail (avec la rédaction de Mediapart, chez Don Quichotte), La République sur écoute (avec la rédaction de Mediapart, chez Don Quichotte). J'ai également co-dirigé avec Paul Moreira l'ouvrage collectif Informer n'est pas un délit (Calmann-Lévy).

#Bande dessinée Je suis le co-auteur avec Benoît Collombat, Michel Despratx, Elodie Guéguen et Geoffrey Le Guilcher de la BD Sarkozy-Kadhafi, des billets et des bombes (La Revue dessinée/Delcourt), dessinée par Thierry Chavant.

#Film Je suis le co-auteur avec Jean-Christophe Klotz d'un documentaire sur l'affaire Karachi, L'argent, le sang et la démocratie, qui a reçu en 2014 le Grand Prix et le Prix du Public du Festival international du Grand Reportage d'Actualité (FIGRA). Co-auteur de la série D’argent et de Sang, adaptée du livre éponyme et réalisée par Xavier Giannoli. Co-auteur du documentaire de cinéma Personne n’y comprend rien, sur l’affaire Sarkozy-Kadhafi. 

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.

Consult my declaration of interests

All his articles

  • French PM François Bayrou restores his mayor's office - while preaching austerity to the nation

    Politique — Investigation

    Prime minister François Bayrou has approved the renovation of his office in Pau, the small city in south-west France where he is also still the serving mayor. The aim of the work is to “restore the original splendour” of that office, and the bill - to be paid from public funds - comes in at 40,000 euros, according to Mediapart's information. Such a move is politically explosive in the middle of a national austerity plan being pushed by the prime minister himself and against the backdrop of a city council whose public debt has soared since it came under Bayrou's control. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget

  • The racist and homophobic writings of a far-right MP and key ally of Marine Le Pen

    Politique — Investigation

    Caroline Parmentier is a Member of Parliament for the far-right Rassemblement National and a key strategist for that party's former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. In particular, she has been one of the architects of Le Pen’s so-called “de-demonisation” strategy to soften the party's image and erase memories of its murky past. Yet an investigation by Mediapart has shown that over a period of 30 years Caroline Parmentier wrote racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic comments for a far-right publication. She also openly expressed her support for Marshal Philippe Pétain – who headed France's wartime Vichy government which collaborated with the Nazis - on Facebook as recently as 2018. Rassemblement National now faces growing embarrassment over these revelations about a woman who is a close friend of Marine Le Pen. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget

  • When Macron and Le Pen align against the rule of law

    France — Opinion

    Emmanuel Macron and his principal opponent, far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, recently found common ground when commenting on two judicial affairs. In the case of Le Pen, it was about her conviction for embezzlement and a sentence that bans her for five years from holding public office. In the case of Macron, it was his refusal to back calls to strip former president Nicolas Sarkozy of his Légion d’honneur award after his conviction for corruption. Both cited the electoral choice by “the sovereign people” as superior to the laws in place. In this op-ed article, Fabrice Arfi, co-head of Mediapart’s investigations unit, argues that this anti-judicial populism, a sort of French Trumpism, is the result of a political and moral collapse that is not limited to one political camp alone.

    by Fabrice Arfi

  • French PM Bayrou and the Catholic school abuse affair: collective denial and individual error

    France — Opinion

    Prime minister François Bayrou may not have known everything about the abuses being committed at the private Catholic school at Bétharram in south-west France, but he knew enough while occupying various political posts over the years to at least have tried to take action. Yet he did nothing. On May 14th he is due to appear before a parliamentary inquiry into the unfolding scandal at the independent school. In this op-ed article, Mediapart's Fabrice Arfi wonders whether the head of the French government will continue to double down on his disastrous strategy of lying over the issue.

    by Fabrice Arfi

  • Number of corruption cases in France has doubled over past eight years says official report

    France

    The latest data from the Ministry of the Interior and France's anti-corruption agency show there has been a sharp rise in the number of offences involving dishonesty or breaches of probity, across all categories of such crime. This leap has been driven in particular by the number of cases of corruption, which has almost doubled over that period. Yet despite these startling figures and recent high-profile corruption cases involving prominent figures, France's political leaders continue to ignore the issue, as Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget

  • Gaddafi-Sarkozy funding trial ends with defence speech claiming 'empty' prosecution case

    Justice

    The trial of Nicolas Sarkozy and 11 others on corruption charges relating to the alleged funding of the former French president’s 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi ended this week with the speeches of Sarkozy’s defence team. The four lawyers spoke for five hours calling for the charges against him to be thrown out and denouncing an “empty” case brought by prosecutors, who have requested Sarkozy be handed a seven-year prison sentence. Given the final word on Tuesday before the judges announce their verdicts in September, Sarkozy dismissed what he said was a “political and violent” prosecution case. Fabrice Arfi was in court on the day the curtain went down on an extraordinary trial.

    by Fabrice Arfi

  • Sarkozy and Le Pen apologists are wrong: there is no 'judges' Republic' - just the Republic's judges

    France — Opinion

    The court verdict that has effectively barred far-right leader Marine Le Pen from standing at the 2027 presidential election, preceded by prosecutors’ demands for former president Nicolas Sarkozy to receive a seven-year prison sentence in the Sarkozy-Gaddafi Libyan funding trial, have one thing in common. Within the space of a few days both pronouncements provoked unbridled populist rhetoric railing against the rule of law. In this op-ed article, Mediapart's Fabrice Arfi argues that beneath this outcry there lies a deep longing for the return of privileges and for the end of equality before the law.

    by Fabrice Arfi

  • Key takeaways from the Gaddafi-Sarkozy election funding trial

    Justice — Analysis

    The trial of Nicolas Sarkozy and 11 others on corruption charges relating to the alleged funding of the former French president’s 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is now entering its final stages after prosecutors on Thursday called for Sarkozy to be handed a seven-year jail sentence and a 300,000-euro fine. Mediapart looks back at the significant moments of the trial so far, before the court hears the arguments for the defence of Sarkozy and his co-accused, who include three former ministers. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske

  • Libyan funding trial: Sarkozy on back foot over two key aspects of the case

    France — Chronicle

    Nicolas Sarkozy and three former ministers are standing trial in Paris over claims that the former president's successful 2007 election campaign was part-funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And that the North African country – whose leader was one of the most notorious dictators on the planet – received favours in exchange. There are 13 defendants in all. In Wednesday's court hearing Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to be in difficulty when questioned on two issues in the case. One was the nuclear power plant that France wanted to sell to the Libyan dictator in 2007. The other was the exfiltration in 2011 – first from Libya, later from France - of Gaddafi's former chief of staff Bashir Saleh when the latter was the object of an Interpol arrest warrant. Fabrice Arfi reports on Wednesday's hearing.

    by Fabrice Arfi

  • Nicolas Sarkozy's risky legal defence strategy – abandoning his loyal aides

    France — Investigation

    Nicolas Sarkozy and some of his former ministers go on trial this Monday over claims that the former French president's successful 2007 election campaign was funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In this, as in other criminal cases in which the former head of state has been implicated, his approach has been to disclaim any personal knowledge of events, even to the point of throwing his closest associates under the bus. In the current case the ex-head of state has had harsh words for his most loyal lieutenants, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant. “I had no way of knowing what the reality of their lives was,” he told judges investigating the affair. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske

  • Sarkozy-Gaddafi election funding case: an historic trial for an affair of state

    France — Investigation

    On January 6th Nicolas Sarkozy took centre stage at an historic trial in Paris. He and three former ministers face charges over claims that the former president's successful 2007 election campaign was part-funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And that the North African country – whose leader was one of the most notorious dictators on the planet – received favours in exchange. The marathon trial, unprecedented in both the nature of the charges and the profiles of the defendants, who number 13 in all, is expected to last until April 10th. It marks the culmination of a ten-year judicial investigation that, in the words of the judges carrying out the probe, has “revealed both payments and reciprocal benefits”. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the background to this momentous court case.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske

  • The French airliner bombing central to the Gaddafi-Sarkozy funding trial

    Justice — Interview

    Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and three of his ex-ministers will stand trial in Paris on January 6th on corruption charges related to the alleged illegal funding of his 2007 election campaign by the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Part of the prosecution case is the alleged offer by Sarkozy’s entourage to overturn, in return for the funding, an international arrest warrant issued by France against Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah al-Senussi, who was found guilty in absentia of masterminding the mid-air bombing of a French airliner in which 170 people died. In this interview with Mediapart, the sister of one of the victims, and the daughter of another, recount their long quest for justice, and explain why they hope the trial will finally present the truth about the suspected ugly dealings over Senussi.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske

All his blog posts

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.

Fabrice Arfi (avatar)

Fabrice Arfi

Mediapart Journalist

31 Posts

0 Editions

  • Coronavirus: face à la crise sanitaire, la nécessité de la transparence

    Blog post

    Parce qu'il ne peut y avoir de confinement pour l’information d’intérêt général, Mediapart a décidé de créer une adresse mail spécifique — covid@mediapart.fr — afin de recueillir toutes les informations qualifiées, y compris documentaires (notes, rapports, échanges, circulaires, etc…), capables d’éclairer le débat public.

  • Les Rugy n’ont toujours pas digéré

    Blog post

    Séverine Servat de Rugy, l’épouse de l’ancien numéro 2 du gouvernement qui avait dû démissionner suite aux révélations de Mediapart sur l’appétit du couple pour le mélange des genres avec l’argent public, publie un livre-témoignage, « La Marche du crabe ». Mediapart l’a lu.

  • La manipulation

    Blog post

    J’ai fait l’objet d’une manipulation de la DGSI. Discrète, habile, subtile. Je ne parle pas d’une surveillance téléphonique illégale, d’un cambriolage nocturne ou d’une filature avec le col de l’imperméable relevé, non, je parle d’une petite manip' de papier. Explications.

  • «D’argent et de sang»: un livre et un chat sur Mediapart le 10 septembre, de 11h à midi

    Blog post

    Après les enquêtes de Mediapart entamées à l’automne 2015 sur “la mafia du CO2”, j’ai voulu consacrer à cette histoire devenue pour moi une obsession un livre, «D’argent et de sang», publié aujourd'hui aux éditions du Seuil.

  • Rendre public

    Blog post

    La revue Médium, dirigée par Régis Debray, a souhaité m'interroger sur les enjeux — et les risques — de la « transparence ». Voici le résultat de notre entretien publié dans le numéro de la revue actuellement en kiosques (Nouveaux pouvoirs, nouvelles servitudes) et que je reproduis avec l'aimable autorisation de sa direction. Où il est question de journalisme et de secret.