48 ans. À la création de Mediapart, j'ai d’abord suivi le Parlement, puis j’ai rejoint le service Enquêtes. Mes sujets de prédilection pendant des années : l'argent des élus et des partis, la corruption, la transparence, les conflits d'intérêts... De 2018 à 2019, je me suis consacrée à des sujets sur les migrations. Puis j’ai intégré la direction éditoriale élargie, de 2019 à 2023, comme responsable du pôle Société. Désormais, je me penche sur les droits des enfants et les violences qui leur sont faites.
Pour m’écrire : mathilde.mathieu@mediapart.fr
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.
Stories of the abuse of pupils at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram private Catholic school in south-west France have grabbed the headlines in recent months, and have been the subject of parliamentary debate and a high-profile report by Members of Parliament. But how many pupils and former pupils have taken their own lives after suffering abuse at this and other such schools? That question has been notably absent from the many debates sparked by the Bétharram affair. Yet there are many such cases. Mediapart has spoken to witnesses and loved ones, who tell of lives and families that have been torn apart. Sarah Brethes and Mathilde Mathieu report.
Lawyer Maxime Tessier, 33, a defence counsel for former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec, who was handed a 20-year jail sentence in May for variously raping and sexually assaulting 299 victims, mostly child patients, died in an apparent suicide overnight on Tuesday. Amid the shocked reactions to Tessier’s death, which one psychiatrist said may have been the result of vicarious trauma caused by the horror of Le Scouarnec’s crimes, a number criticised the lack of psychological support offered to lawyers faced with such harrowing cases. Hugo Lemonier and Mathilde Mathieu report.
On Wednesday a parliamentary inquiry led by MPs published its reported on the scandal at the prestigious Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram private Catholic school in south-west France and the wider issue of the abuse of pupils in French schools. Prime minister François Bayrou, a former education minister and local politician whose own children attended that school, was criticised by the inquiry for “failing to act” in relation to the scandal. However, in their report, the MPs also refer to the “Pélussin affair”, which broke in 1995 at a Catholic boarding school in the south-east of France. According to documents uncovered by Mediapart, in that case, too, François Bayrou ignored whistleblowers, who have now attacked his “inaction”. Mathilde Mathieu and David Perrotin report.
It is thought that, on average, a child dies at the hands of their parents every five days in France. But this is just an estimate as no detailed and centralised record is kept of the number of children killed in this way each year. In an investigation Mediapart has examined the deaths of 46 young children who met a violent end within their family in 2024. Often these killings are treated as isolated “cases”. But the sheer number of such deaths shows the extent to which fatal violence against young children is systemic in the country. “Infanticide is the tip of the iceberg of the particular violence inflicted on children in a society where adults dominate them in countless ways,” says one campaigner. Mathilde Mathieu reports.
The decision by President Emmanuel Macron to hold snap legislative elections in four weeks’ time, a move taken on Sunday immediately after the landslide victory of the French far-right in European Parliament elections, has had the effect of a political bombshell. Not least because it now appears possible that the far-right Rassemblement National party, riding high on the results of Sunday’s poll, may gain enough seats in parliament to form a government. For some in France, that prospect has made them fearful over their future. Mediapart has been listening to their concerns.
Just four short weeks ago Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was put in charge of one of France's most important departments, the Ministry of Education, when President Emmanuel Macron announced a new government. But she was immediately engulfed in controversy following Mediapart's revelations that she had educated her own children at a private school and after she then made disparaging comments about her local state primary school. Other revelations quickly followed and it soon became clear that her position was untenable, leading to President Macron's decision on Thursday evening to remove her in the final, delayed part of his reshuffle. Yet in her brief stint as minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra has unwittingly reopened debates that are crucial for the future of the education system in France. The Mediapart team who broke the stories about the minister and covered her brief time in office - Mathilde Goanec, Mathilde Mathieu, David Perrotin, Ilyes Ramdani and Antton Rouget – report on her unexpected legacy.
On Monday evening in central Paris, migrants and journalists were physically abused by police engaged in a brutal, manu militari evacuation of a makeshift camp set up on the Place de la République. The police violence was exposed in images circulating on social media and which would be banned if draft legislation currently before parliament is approved. In this joint op-ed article, Mediapart co-editor in chief Carine Fouteau and social affairs editor Mathilde Mathieu argue that the overnight events are a representation of the liberticidal drift of President Emmanuel Macron’s administration, and may prove to be a political turning point.
Eight human rights and refugee associations have joined together to take legal action over France's decision to give a number of fast boats to the Libyan navy. At the launch of their legal process on Thursday April 25th, the groups said France's actions would “contribute to blatant violations” of migrants' fundamental rights. Mathilde Mathieu reports.
France is to supply the Libyan navy with six speedboats destined for coastguard operations to intercept migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. The move was described as “scandalous” by medical aid NGO Doctors without Borders, which underlined the horrific fate that awaits intercepted migrants, who are placed in notorious internment camps in Libya. A recent report by UN agencies denounced the camps for practices of violence, torture and rape, and solemnly called on EU countries to ensure they give “no support” to the Libyan coastguard that “contributes to bringing rescued migrants and refugees back to Libya”.
Authorities in the French city of Bayonne are struggling to cope with the number of migrants coming from across the nearby Spanish border. Mediapart met Joseph and Moriba, 'blood brothers' who are seeking France's protection after nearly dying at sea crossing to Europe from Morocco. After a legal battle, Joseph has now been recognised as a minor by the French courts while Moriba's request will be heard on appeal shortly. Mathilde Mathieu reports.
Dozens of Moroccan youths roam the Goutte d'Or district of Paris, where they are both the authors and victims of violence and have been making life a misery for local inhabitants. Unable to cope, over the summer the French authorities called on Moroccan police officers to help arrange possible repatriation of some of the youngsters. Rachida El Azzouzi and Mathilde Mathieu report on a policy that has alarmed some local support groups.
The political scandal surrounding Emmanuel Macron’s disgraced personal security advisor Alexandre Benalla is centred less on his thuggish behaviour in beating up May Day demonstrators while illegally wearing police insignia but rather on the secrecy of his role and his relationship with the president who afforded the 26-year-old extraordinary powers. Benalla was engaged as a ‘mission leader’ with the presidency, a vague title afforded to a number of other Élysée Palace staff whose activities are largely unaccountable to the public. Mediapart has obtained the employment contracts of Benalla and five other so-called ‘mission leaders’ at the Élysée which reveal how they are exempt from probity law requirements that apply to official advisors. Mathilde Mathieu reports.
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Et de trois. Une fois de plus, Patrick Balkany et son ancien bras-droit, Jean-Pierre Aubry, tous les deux mis en examen pour « blanchiment de fraude fiscale » (entre autres) et soumis à un strict contrôle judiciaire qui leur interdit de se rencontrer, se retrouvent au même moment, au même endroit, sur la même photo. Par hasard, sans aucun doute.
Pour Pièces à conviction, le journaliste Stéphane Girard a fait le reportage que Mediapart aurait dû réaliser depuis cinq ans. Consacrée aux abus dans les coulisses de l’Assemblée nationale, son enquête, diffusée ce mercredi à 23h10 sur France 3, nous embarque à Londres pour une plongée dans le (contre)-modèle britannique.
Voilà déjà une semaine que le député UMP Dominique Tian a reconnu publiquement, contraint et forcé, avoir planqué un compte en Suisse pendant des années. Voilà déjà une semaine que ce pourfendeur patenté de la fraude sociale (celle des autres, celle des « gagne-petit » qui grugent le RSA ou les allocs) a confessé avoir soustrait plus de 1,5 million d’euros au fisc français, avant de profiter d’une circulaire indulgente pour rapatrier discrètement ses billes en 2014. Et rien ne se passe ou presque.
Mediapart ne lâchera rien. Les citoyens ont le droit de savoir comment le financement des campagnes électorales est contrôlé en France. Avec quelle ardeur, quelle légèreté ou quel aveuglement. Alors que les révélations se multiplient sur les trucages opérés lors de diverses présidentielles, les documents relatifs aux instructions menées par la Commission nationale des comptes de campagne (CNCCFP) sont toujours tenus au secret. En ce vendredi 13 mars, les choses pourraient basculer.
La fortune les abandonne. Hier, Patrick Balkany (mis en examen pour « corruption » et « blanchiment de fraude fiscale ») et son bras-droit Jean-Pierre Aubry (mis en examen pour « complicité de corruption » et « blanchiment de fraude fiscale ») ont manqué de chance : ils ont été repérés discutant devant L’Anjou, un restaurant de Levallois-Perret, alors que le contrôle judiciaire auquel est soumis le second lui interdit de rencontrer le premier –précisément pour éviter qu’ils n’échangent sur l’information judiciaire en cours, menée par les juges Renaud van Ruymbeke et Patricia Simon.
