Ancienne journaliste à l'Usine Nouvelle, au Monde, et à la Tribune. Plusieurs livres: Vivendi: une affaire française; Ces messieurs de chez Lazard, Rothschild, une banque au pouvoir. Participation aux ouvrages collectifs : l'histoire secrète de la V République, l'histoire secrète du patronat , Les jours heureux, informer n'est pas un délit.
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.
The French prosecution services have launched an investigation into suspected corruption by President Emmanuel Macron’s chief of staff Alexis Kohler, following an official complaint lodged by anti-corruption NGO Anticor. The complaint cited revelations last month by Mediapart into Kohler’s role, when he was a senior civil servant, in affairs in which the interests of a shipping company owned by members of his close family were at stake. Mediapart’s Martine Orange, who first broke the story, details here the background to the case that now threatens the downfall of the man described by French daily Le Monde as “the most powerful senior civil servant in France”.
The French businessman Vincent Bolloré has been placed under formal investigation over the alleged corruption of foreign public officials and complicity in corruption. The probe into the well-connected businessman, who has amassed much of his fortune through his dealings in Africa, relates to how one of its companies won the concessions to run the ports at Lomé in Togo and Conakry in Guinea, and the use of his communications firm in the electoral campaigns of African leaders. Martine Orange gives the background to the allegations.
A government-commissioned report on France's railway sector has put reform of the employment status and supposedly “exorbitant privileges” of the country's railway workers firmly at the centre of the political agenda. These changes would themselves save around 100 million to 150 million euros in savings over ten years – a modest amount compared with the massive debts of the train operator SNCF. But as Martine Orange reports, the French presidency's real aim is to win a political battle by getting pubic opinion on its side.
At the end of a legal case brought by tech giant Apple against alter-globalisation organisation ATTAC, in which the tech giant sought a three-year ban on activists demonstrating in and outside its stores in France to highlight the firm’s tax-avoidance schemes, a Paris court has ruled in favour of ATTAC, describing its campaign as being in the “general interest”. Martine Orange reports.
In an extraordinary move, American tech giant Apple this week applied before a Paris court for a three-year ban to be imposed on alter-globalisation group ATTAC from continuing with its recent demonstrations at the company’s stores in France in a campaign to denounce its tax-dodging practices. Mediapart economics and business correspondent Martine Orange was in court to follow the hearing which, she reports here, has above all served to further tarnish the iPhone maker's image.
A French judicial investigation into suspected corruption surrounding the sale to Kazakhstan of satellites made by aerospace giant EADS, now renamed Airbus Group, has discovered the trace of a mysterious payment of 8.8 million euros made by the group to an offshore company whose true owners are unknown, apparently even to Airbus. The investigation also centres on the sale to Kazakhstan by EADS of 45 helicopters, and the deepening scandal implicating Airbus in what has become dubbed “Kazakhgate” is joined by separate probes in France and Britain into the group’s alleged corrupt practices in past sales of its civil aircraft. Martine Orange and Yann Philippin report.
The former commercial director of EADS – now Airbus – Jean-Paul Gut, who set up the commercial and marketing system that is now at the centre of parallel corruption investigations by French and British police, received a 'golden parachute' of around 80 million euros, it can be revealed. A joint investigation by Mediapart and German weekly Der Spiegel also shows that the European aerospace group was willing to continue using Gut as a highly-paid consultant even after he left his lucrative post in 2007.
The French and British investigations into alleged corruption at the European aerospace and defence group Airbus centre on claims that hundreds of millions of euros of hidden commissions were paid out as part of massive export deals. Here Mediapart reveals details of a secretive system which flourished inside the group for 15 years and which today threatens some of its most senior figures. Martine Orange and Yann Philippin investigate.
The new French government has reacted as if it were surprised at the news that the French-led project to build a new nuclear power station in south-west England is already behind schedule and over budget. Yet it has known about the financial and technical risks posed by the Hinkley Point scheme for a long time, says Martine Orange. For the minister who personally backed and oversaw the massive project during the last presidency now himself occupies the Élysée.
In order to finance his election campaign, Emmanuel Macron succeeded in raising almost 13 million euros in what was a remarkable achievement for his maverick centrist political movement En Marche ! created barely one year before his election as president. But contrary to the image put about by his campaign team that it was the result of a spontaneous surge of popular support, the funds were primarily sourced from a powerful network of bankers, financiers and businessmen, as information gathered from the massive leak of hacked En Marche ! internal documents and verified by Mediapart reveals.
For some years the European Union has been recommending that France carry out a series of policy initiatives in key areas such as public finances, pensions, unemployment benefit, workers' rights and even large-scale infrastructure projects such as digital development. Now, says Mediapart's Martine Orange, these policies have found a home – in centrist candidate Emmanuel Macrons's manifesto for the French presidency. In some cases they are almost word for word.
On February 6th the beleaguered right-wing presidential candidate was forced to admit that the major insurance firm AXA was a client of his consultancy firm 2F Conseil. Between 2012 and 2014 the group paid 200,000 euros to Fillon, who was a Member of Parliament at the time. The money was apparently paid to the former prime minister because he could “open doors in Brussels and Berlin” as new European Union insurance regulations were being implemented. Mediapart's Martine Orange argues that the affair is a clear example of conflict of interest.
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En hommage à Alain Le Garrec, ancien élu PS du 1er arrondissement, mort du Covid-19. A tous les élus, militants, petites mains négligées des appareils politiques, tombés lors des élections municipales, pour que vive la démocratie.
Le 6 février, Les Echos affirmaient sur leur site que l’ex-pdg de la Société générale avait gagné son procès en diffamation contre Mediapart. C’était faux. Le quotidien a depuis changé le titre mais pas le fond. A aucun moment, il n’est dit que Mediapart a été relaxé par la 17e chambre correctionnelle. Mise au point.
Au lieu de prendre les 16 millions de dollars de récompense qui lui étaient promis, un lanceur d’alerte, ancien responsable de la Deutsche Bank, préfère y renoncer et dénoncer la collusion entre le système financier et les autorités de contrôle. Afin que toute son action ne soit pas vidée de son sens. Respect.
A quoi s’engagent les candidats aux européennes ? Alors que la campagne européenne commence, plusieurs ONG (Attac, Finance Watch, le Secours catholique, Ccfd - Terre solidaire, l’institut Verblen) ont souhaité réunir mardi 6 mai plusieurs candidats aux européennes pour les interroger sur les propositions et les combats qu’ils seraient prêts à mener, s’ils étaient élus au parlement européen.
Les dirigeants européens n’en finissaient plus de se féliciter, jeudi. La mine réjouie, tous saluaient le grand succès du retour de la Grèce sur les marchés. Athènes avait réussi à lever 3 milliards d’euros auprès d’investisseurs internationaux, avec le soutien des grandes banques internationales, dont Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan et Deutsche Bank.
