J'ai rejoint Mediapart en mai 2011, après avoir été été journaliste à Libération de 1994 à 2011.
J'ai publié: L'assassin qu'il fallait sauver (Robert Laffont, 2025), De la part du Calife (Robert Laffont, 2021), Avec les compliments du Guide (avec Fabrice Arfi, Fayard, 2017), Les cartels du lait (avec Elsa Casalegno, Editions Don Quichotte, 2016), La Mémoire du plomb (Stock, 2012), Le Vrai Canard (avec Laurent Valdiguié, Stock, 2008, réédité en Points Seuil, 2010), Putsch au PS (collectif Victor Noir, Denoël, 2007), Machinations (avec Laurent Valdiguié, Denoël, 2006, réédité chez Pocket), Nicolas Sarkozy ou le destin de Brutus (collectif Victor Noir, Denoël, 2005), Des coffres si bien garnis, enquête sur les serviteurs de l'État-voyou (Denoël, 2004), Ils se croyaient intouchables (Albin Michel, 2000), Le banquier noir (Seuil, 1996).
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.
A criminal investigation was launched in France in 2021 over the sale of 36 Dassault Aviation Rafale fighter aircraft to India in a deal concluded in 2016 and worth 7.8 billion euros. The judge-led probe is examining the involvement of India's Reliance Group, owned and run by businessman Anil Ambani, who became Dassault's industrial partner in the massive contract signed by the French and Indian governments. Detectives are also looking into the funding by Anil Ambani's company at the same time of a film produced by actor and producer Julie Gayet, the partner of the then French president François Hollande. She has been questioned by detectives as part of the investigation. Will the former president himself now be interviewed? Karl Laske reports.
By the time of his death in January 2025 the founder of the far-right Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, had been out of front-line politics for a few years. But right until the end this deeply divisive figure still had the ability to make waves. According to a new will drawn up in August 2023 and whose existence Mediapart can reveal, Jean-Marie Le Pen bequeathed to his wife Jany the right to continue to live at the family's manor in a wealthy suburb of Paris. This has hampered his daughter Marine Le Pen, who only found out about this will after her father’s death, in her efforts to sell the property. As Karl Laske and Marine Turchi report, the veteran far-right figure's final wishes are now the subject of intense family negotiations.
In a series of confessions before US and German prosecutors, the transcripts of which have been obtained by Mediapart, former Libyan secret services agent Musbah Eter detailed how intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, Muammar Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, and his bomb-maker “Masud”, planned and carried out a series of bombings in the 1980s, including that which downed a Pan Am Boeing 747 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Eter’s statements, given in a series of interrogations between 2013 and 2015, have never before been made public and remained unexploited by prosecution services. That may change ahead of a new trial over the Lockerbie bombing due in the US next April. Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille report.
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.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was questioned for the final time this week at his trial, alongside 12 other defendants, over the alleged funding of his 2007 presidential election campaign by the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Sarkozy has insisted he is innocent of the charges of corruption, criminal conspiracy, receipt of the proceeds of the misappropriation of (Libyan) public funds, and illegal campaign financing, and this week denounced what he called “the basic premise” of the prosecution services that he is guilty. “I’m not a highwayman, I’m not a bandit”, he told the court this week. Karl Laske reports.
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. Wednesday's court hearing featured evidence from the former director of intelligence at France's overseas intelligence agency, the DGSE. Alain Juillet said that he had warned the former president's key allies and fellow defendants Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant of the risks they were taking by having contact with intermediaries – and also co-defendants - Ziad Takieddine and Alexandre Djouhri. Karl Laske reports
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.
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.
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.
Mediapart has obtained the rushes, hitherto unseen in public, of a video interview with Ziad Takieddine, a key witness in the probe into the alleged Libyan funding of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign, in which the Franco-Lebanese business intermediary retracted his earlier testimony detailing how Sarkozy received the cash sums from Tripoli. The video was broadcast as an edited 32-second “exclusive” in November 2020 by French rolling news channel BFMTV, before Takieddine, who had been promised payment, finally disowned his retraction and an investigation into “witness tampering” was launched. The unedited video rushes, published in this report, reveal the extent of the manipulation by BFMTV in operation dubbed “Save Sarko”. Fabrice Arfi, Karl Laske and Antton Rouget report.
In November 2020, a key witness in the French judicial investigation into alleged funding by the Gaddafi regime of former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign publicly retracted his testimony. French-Lebanese business intermediary Ziad Takieddine had previously detailed how he brought suitcases of cash from Tripoli to Paris for Sarkozy’s campaign. A separate judicial investigation into “witness tampering” subsequently established that Takieddine had been promised several million euros to retract his allegations. Mediapart can now reveal how, illustrated by a remarkable exchange of phone text messages, the management of France’s rolling news channel BFMTV, which broadcast a video of Takieddine’s retraction, connived with the attempt to undermine the Libyan funding probe. Fabrice Arfi, Karl Laske and Antton Rouget report.
The food nutrition labelling system known as Nutri-Score was first introduced in France in 2017 and later adopted by Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Holland and Luxembourg. The aim of the five-coloured label scheme is to help guide consumers towards eating healthier produce. But on the pretext of defending Italian food, Giorgia Meloni's government and the Italian far right have so far prevented this system from being rolled out across the rest of the European Union. Karl Laske reports.
