Journaliste à France Culture entre 2000 et 2011, il a rejoint Mediapart en mai 2011. Joseph Confavreux est membre du comité de rédaction de la revue Vacarme, a codirigé le livre La France invisible (La Découverte, 2006) et a publié deux autres ouvrages, Egypte :histoire, société, culture (La Découverte, 2009), et Passés à l'ennemi, des rangs de l'armée française aux maquis Viet-Minh (Tallandier, 2014). Il est aussi co-rédacteur en chef de la Revue du Crieur.
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.
In an interview with Mediapart, former Israeli prime minister and ex-chief of general staff of the country's military, Ehud Barak, details his view of the so-called Trump plan for an end to the war in Gaza, argues why Benjamin Netanyahu must go, why both sides in the conflict must compromise, and why the only conclusion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in a two-state solution.
In a lively and to-the-point essay published this month in France, historian Sophie Bessis analyses the notion and roots of the phrase “Judeo-Christian civilisation”, a now commonly employed expression that is also an ideology. In her book, reviewed here by Joseph Confavreux, she argues that “this extraordinary semantic and ideological invention" is a concept that is fundamentally flawed, and a deception employed as a political weapon.
The people of Gaza are being engulfed by rivers of blood. And part of our humanity is being swept away with them, write Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux and Carine Fouteau in this op-ed article. There is an urgent need for compassion, public pressure and politics, they say, to halt the deaths of civilians - including many children.
A “revolution”, a “jolt” an “emancipation” … however one wants to describe this contemporary feminist period, the fact remains that five years after it began #MeToo is at a crossroads; weakened for internal reasons and opposed by those whom it challenges. In this article, the first in a series, Lénaïg Bredoux and Joseph Confavreux assess the current status of the #MeToo movement.
Le Monde newspaper recently depublished an opinion article about Algeria that had attracted the ire of President Emmanuel Macron. As Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux says in this analysis piece, this was not a one-off example of the Élysée confusing journalism with public relations. As he explains, a number of academics, politicians and journalists are concerned about the way the presidency appears to be systematically equating the two.
On September 29th 2021 the Élysée officially unveiled a new commission to help fight against conspiracy theories and disinformation. Officially called the 'Enlightenment in the digital age' commission, President Emmanuel Macron wants it to champion science, reason and truth and come up with new policy options in an era where social media in particular is awash with a bewildering array of views and theories. Critics, however, accuse the head of state of wanting to impose his own narrative ahead of next April's presidential election. Already the membership of the commission has been bitterly criticised, in particular its chair, social scientist Gérald Bronner. And after also coming under fire another member, Professor Guy Vallancien, a high-profile urologist, has just resigned from the body. Joseph Confavreux and Ellen Salvi report.
The Paris Commune, an uprising in which ordinary citizens seized control of the French capital, began on March 18th 1871 and lasted for two months before coming to a bloody end. Now, 150 years after those dramatic events, an exhaustive book on the Commune has been been published. As Joseph Confavreux reports the book, edited by historian Michel Cordillot, retraces the uprising in minute detail and explains why this traumatic event still provokes debate in France to this day.
The messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19 infection are apparently highly effective, but they are also in too short supply to meet current demand. In France, doctors have found that vials of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna contain more than the indicated number of doses. By collecting the dregs of the bottles, there is the potential of producing millions more doses from existing supplies. But the French health authorities are refusing to authorise the practice. Joseph Confavreux and Caroline Coq-Chodorge report.
The inhabitants of the semi-autonomous South Pacific French territory of New Caledonia are to vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether they want full independence from France, which colonised the archipelago in the mid-19th century. In a similar referendum in 2018, nearly 57% of votes cast were against cutting ties with Paris. Can the pro-independence movement swing the result in their favour this time around? Joseph Confavreux interviews New Caledonia's prominent pro-independence political leader Jean-Pierre Djaïwé.
A leading specialist in infectious diseases, French doctor Didier Sicard was for many years head of internal medicine at the Cochin public hospital in Paris, helped establish the Pasteur Institute’s branch in Laos, south-east Asia, and served for eight years as head of France’s national bioethics advisory committee. In this interview with Joseph Confavreux, he offers his insight into the current Covid-19 virus pandemic – a phenomenon he warned against long ago – including the perpetuating root causes of the crisis, the action needed to avoid a recurrence, why medicine can only be effective if it encompasses a wide view of society, and how public health policy has lost sight of its fundamental missions.
Sociologist Benoît Coquard specialises in the study of the working classes who live in rural areas of France. He has just published a book which rejects many of the old assumptions about France's declining countryside and the supposed isolation of citizens living in 'peripheral' areas around the country's large conurbations cities. As Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux writes, the book also provides valuable insight into the origins of the so-called 'yellow vest' protests which began sweeping France a year ago.
French journalist and author Ixchel Delaporte spent a year investigating the wine industry in the Médoc region near Bordeaux in south-west France. It produces some of the most prestigious – and expensive – wines not just in France but anywhere in the world. Yet the journalist's book on her experiences and discoveries reveals a deep chasm between the impoverished local workers, many of them seasonal and occasional staff, and often suffering from poor health and living in substandard accommodation, and the glittering world of the small but powerful elite who control the major vineyards. Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux reports.
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Mediapart renforce sa couverture de la culture et lance une newsletter dédiée aux batailles culturelles, aux enquêtes sur les institutions, aux débats sur la création et aux rencontres avec des lieux et des personnes qui continuent de faire vivre un champ attaqué de toutes parts.
Marine Vlahovic, retrouvée morte lundi dernier, avait 39 ans. Voix talentueuse d’Arte Radio et de France Culture, elle avait aussi signé plusieurs papiers pour Mediapart, notamment sur la Palestine. Son énergie manquera à Gaza et son rire à ses ami·es.
Jeudi 14 novembre, la Revue du Crieur, publie son 25ème et dernier numéro, après presque dix années d'existence consacrées à enquêter sur les idées et la culture. Le moment de compléter votre collection en lisant notamment un dossier exceptionnel consacré à la « Solitude de Gaza ».
Le podcast culturel de critique hebdomadaire de Mediapart reprend ses émissions ce dimanche 25 septembre, parce que le service public se désintéresse toujours plus des voix critiques et que la concentration des industries culturelles continue de vouloir les étouffer.
Le n° 19 de la « Revue du crieur » sort ce jeudi 14 octobre en librairies et Relay, et tente, à l’amorce d’une campagne présidentielle inquiétante, de déverrouiller un imaginaire national fossilisé. Il explore aussi les dérives du CNRS, la planète E-Girl, l’itinéraire du chercheur Bernard Rougier ou encore l’héritage de Simone de Beauvoir.
