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.
In a series of exclusive reports that began in July, Mediapart has revealed the longstanding close links between France-based businessman and arms dealer Ziad Takieddine and the inner circle of advisors and aides surrounding Nicolas Sarkozy, before and after he became French president. Here, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske reveal Takieddine's highly sensitive role as secret emissary for the French presidency in securing close diplomatic and commercial ties with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Mediapart has obtained confidential documents that reveal how international arms dealer Ziad Takieddine was mandated by Nicolas Sarkozy's staff, before and after he became president, to negotiate on their behalf major weapons and security contracts with the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Takieddine was notably an intermediary for the sale of a French encrypted signals system to protect the Libyan regime from surveillance by the US-led Western communications interception network known as ‘Echelon'.
Mediapart can also reveal that President Sarkozy's former chief-of-staff, the current French interior minister Claude Guéant misled, while under oath, a French parliamentary commission investigating the circumstances of French involvement in the freeing of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medic jailed in Libya, in 2007.
In a series of reports that began July 11th, Mediapart has revealed the close links between businessman and arms dealer Ziad Takieddine and ranking members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's entourage, including ministers past and present. The documents and photos exclusively obtained by Mediapart raise important questions over the political relations and the role of the Franco-Lebanese intermediary who is regarded as a key witness in an ongoing judicial investigation into suspected illegal political financing in France via commissions paid in weapons sales abroad, notably a sale of French submarines to Pakistan. In this sixth report, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske return to a lavish party thrown by Takieddine in 2002 for a glittering guest list of French movers and shakers from the worlds of politics, the media, business and the lofty ranks of the civil service.
Mediapart has obtained documents revealing how French President Nicolas Sarkozy's close entourage, including serving and former ministers, attempted a reconciliation with the outlawed regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi which included moves to sideline an international warrant for the arrest of the colonel's security chief, Abdullah Senussi (photo, circled), sentenced in absentia in France for the bombing of a French airliner that left 170 people dead. While the International Criminal Court has now issued arrest warrants for Senussi, Gaddafi and his son, Saif al-Islam, for "murder and crimes against humanity" during the recent upheavals in Libya. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the muddied background to NATO's military campaign for democracy in Libya.
Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine is a key witness in an ongoing judicial investigation into suspected illegal political financing in France via commissions paid in weapons sales abroad, notably a sale of French submarines to Pakistan. In an ongoing series of investigations into the arms dealer's close ties with the entourage of President Nicolas Sarkozy, Mediapart reveals how, when Takieddine was brokering a weapons deal for Sarkozy when the latter was interior minister, he fell victim to a mysterious accident on the exclusive billionaires' retreat in the Caribbean island of Mustique. The minister's top aides rushed to save him from a near-certain death in what Takieddine claimed was an assassination attempt.
A contract for the sale of submarines to Pakistan is currently the subject of a French judicial investigation into suspected illegal political party funding in France via commissions paid abroad. Several witnesses have identified Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine as being a principal intermediary in the deal. In this third report on the activities of the arms dealer and his close relations with President Nicolas Sarkozy's immediate entourage, Mediapart reveals how in 2003 Takieddine was destined to receive 350 million euros in secret commissions from another arms contract, via a company run by the interior ministry then headed by Sarkozy. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske investigate.
In an ongoing judicial investigation into suspected illegal political party funding in France via a sale of submarines to Pakistan, several witnesses have identified Franco-Lebanese businessman and arms dealer Ziad Takieddine (photo) as being a principle intermediary in the deal. Earlier this week, Mediapart revealed his closeness to key members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle. In this second report, Mediapart can disclose how Takieddine pays no income tax nor wealth tax in France, despite being domiciled in the country and where, according to documents signed by his hand, he has a wealth of 40 million euros. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske investigate.
Ziad Takieddine is best known to the public in connection with the ongoing judicial investigations into suspected illegal kickbacks from ‘commissions' paid during the controversial sale of submarines by France to Pakistan during the 1990s. But Mediapart can now exclusively reveal the businessman and arms broker's privileged relations at the very heart of President Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske investigate a man who represents a political time bomb for the French presidency.
Following a six-month family truce, the daughter of L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt (photo) has re-applied to have her mother placed as a ward of court amid fresh concerns over the management of the 88 year-old's personal finances, including suspicions of conflicts of interest in a business deal brokered by her newly-appointed legal protector and wealth manager. Karl Laske reports.
The arrest last month in New York of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sex assault charges overnight destroyed his expected candidature, and widely-forecast victory, in next year's French presidential elections. His communications team spent years crafting a presidential image and coercing journalists and publishers to obscure events and reports that might damage it, notably allegations that he sexually assaulted a young writer and journalist, Tristane Banon, in 2002. "I would prefer that you don't talk about it", Strauss-Kahn allegedly told the author of a biography (photo) published just ten days before his arrest. Karl Laske reports.
Riding high in opinion polls, IMF Managing Director and veteran French Socialist Party heavyweight Dominique Strauss-Kahn was until last weekend on course to sweep Nicolas Sarkozy out of office in next year's presidential elections. But the one event that his slick, high-flying communications team had not allowed for, and to which they admit having no answer to, was his arrest in New York on sex assault charges. Karl Laske reports on the grounded spin strategists from Euro RSCG.
