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

  • Karachi bomb blast: the astonishing revelations of a French defence minister

    France

    Revelations from former French defence minister Charles Millon, testifying before an investigating magistrate, have led to calls that President Nicolas Sarkozy be questioned over arms deal kickbacks allegedly behind a bomb attack in which 11 French naval engineers were murdered in Pakistan.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

  • Bettencourt chauffeur adds to Sarkozy campaign fund allegations

    France — Investigation

    In an exclusive interview with Mediapart, a former chauffeur to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her late husband André has added to allegations of secret financing of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential election campaign.

    by Fabrice Lhomme and Fabrice Arfi

    Free access

  • Tibhirine monk murders and 'bitter' reports of a super-spy

    France — Investigation

    In March 1996, seven French Cisterian Trappist monks were kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria. Their heads were found two months later, on a nearby roadside, some hanging from trees in plastic bags. Their murders remain a mystery, despite initial official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible. An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered by the Algerian army, and their bodies mutilated in an appalling cover-up. In this second report on the mystery, we reveal extracts from three secret French intelligence reports prepared by General Philippe Rondot, the 'super-spy' assigned to the case.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

  • Karachi blast probe rapporteur demands truth from Constitutional Council

    France — Interview

    Bernard Cazeneuve, rapporteur for the French parliament's mission of enquiry into the deaths in a bomb blast in Karachi in 2002 of 11 French naval engineers, tells Mediapart of his outrage at the 'obstruction'of the judicial investigation into the murders, and says the Constitutional Council "owes it to the victims" to reveal the truth about Edouard Balladur's presidential election campaign funds.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

  • Dinners, cash and Sarkozy: what Bettencourt's accountant told Mediapart

    France

    Claire Thibout is a former accountant to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and Clymène, the company that manages the billionaire's wealth. Her exclusive interview with Mediapart this summer, reproduced here in English, had the effect of a political bombshell in France. Thibout notably alleged that numerous French politicians, including Nicolas Sarkozy, pocketed gifts of cash-stuffed envelopes during their visits to the Bettencourt home.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

  • A scandal too far: Bettencourt magistrate is disowned

    France

    The revelations emerging from the so-called Bettencourt 'affair' include massive tax fraud, illegal party funding, ministerial conflicts of interest and influence peddling. But this week, despite the gravity of the case, its judicial outcome has been thrown into doubt by moves from a high-ranking prosecutor to remove an independent magistrate from continuing her investigation. In an exclusive interview with Mediapart, lawyer Antoine Gillot, representing the former Bettencourt accountant at the heart of allegations over illegal political funding implicating French President Nicolas Sarkozy (see article below left), denounces a "sad judicial farce" and a "scandalous" political manoeuvre.

    by Fabrice Lhomme and Fabrice Arfi

    Free access

  • Who murdered the beheaded French monks of Tibhirine?

    France

    In May 1996 the heads of seven French Trappist monks, kidnapped from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria, were found by a roadside. Their murders remain a mystery, despite official claims that Islamic extremists were responsible. The tragedy is the subject of the French film 'Des hommes et des dieux', a huge box-office hit. An ongoing French judicial investigation is exploring the theory that they were mistakenly murdered in an Algerian army raid. In the first of a two-part report, we return to the moment when Mediapart first revealed the astonishing evidence suggesting a cover-up by both the Algerian and French authorities.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

  • Bettencourt butler bites back: 'I saw L'Oréal family destroyed'

    France — Investigation

    The so-called 'butler tapes', first revealed by Mediapart in June, hit world headlines and created the Bettencourt affair, a tale of influence peddling, tax-evasion and collusion among the high-flyers of the French political and business establishment. Now Mediapart exclusively reveals what Pascal Bonnefoy, butler to L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, subsequently told police about the behind-the-doors scenes in the home of Europe's wealthiest woman. He testified that she was the subject of physical and verbal abuse, the prey of an inner circle of "mature men" who hide behind "a tired and fragile woman", including one who he said had the habit of urinating in her plant pots.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

  • Karachi: bribes, bloodshed and the buried truth

    International — Investigation

    On May 8th, 2002, a group of 11 French naval engineers died in a bomb attack in the Pakistani port of Karachi. They had been helping with the construction of three Agosta 90 attack submarines, sold to Pakistan by France in 1994. An ongoing French judicial investigation into the blast is now working on the theory the murders were in retaliation for the non-payment by France of huge cash kickbacks promised to secure the deal. But evidence increasingly suggests that the bribe money was also ultimately destined for illegal political party funding in France.

    by Fabrice Arfi and Fabrice Lhomme

    Free access

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.