Journaliste au pôle Enquêtes, j'ai rejoint Mediapart en janvier 2011, après avoir été pigiste à Libération (1986-1987), reporter spécialisé justice au Parisien (1988-1998), et grand reporter en charge de l'investigation au Journal du Dimanche (1999-2010).
J'ai publié plusieurs livres: "Un magistrat politique. Enquête sur Jean-Claude Marin, le procureur le plus puissant de France" (Pygmalion, 2015), "Qui veut la mort du juge d'instruction?" (Les Carnets de l'Info, 2007), et "Adjugé, volé. Chronique d'un trafic à Drouot" (Max Milo, 2011).
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.
Senior French public prosecutor Philippe Courroye (pictured) acted illegally when he spied on journalists' phone calls and SMS records in order to identify their sources while they were reporting the L'Oréal-Bettencourt affair, France's highest court has ruled. It is a severe blow for Courroye, widely regarded as an ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy and who now faces being formally placed under investigation - one step short of charges being brought - for "collecting information of a personal nature by use of fraudulent, foul or illicit means". Michel Deléan reports.
L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt has been ordered to pay almost 78 million euros in tax penalties and back payments after hiding part of her estimated 16-billion euro fortune from the French tax authorities, Mediapart can reveal.Fabrice ArfiandMichel Deléan present the details of this record claim by tax inspectors, which followed Mediapart's public exposure of conversations between the billionaire and her senior advisors involving a complex web of secret accounts and property abroad.
This article has been censored
A ruling by the Versailles court of appeal on July 4th 2013 has ordered that Mediapart must remove from its website all articles which contain extracts from the so-called ‘butler tapes’ at the heart of the Bettencourt affair. The penalty for not doing so is 10,000 euros per article per day (effective from July 21st). Mediapart has appealed against the ruling.
While President Nicolas Sarkozy has made cracking down on crime a hallmark of his policies, in particular regarding juvenile delinquents, French justice has become alarmingly coy in dealing with white-collar financial crime, according to a report from the French branch of the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International. Michel Deléan reviews the findings.
Mediapart has obtained exclusive access to the scathing conclusions of a French court that prompted its decision earlier this month to open an investigation into IMF chief Christine Lagarde's suspected 'aiding and abetting falsification' and 'misappropriation of public funds' when she was French finance minister. The magistrates from France's Court of Justice of the Republic detail why they suspect that she acted personally to ensure that French tycoon Bernard Tapie, who leant public support to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign, received a payout of 403 million euros from the public purse through an arbitration procedure.
A French court is to investigate newly-appointed International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde (photo) for suspected 'aiding and abetting falsification' and 'misappropriation of public funds' in her handling of a huge compensation payout awarded to controversial French businessman Bernard Tapie while she was finance minister. Michel Deléan reports.
A decision on whether to launch an investigation into suspected "abuse of authority" and "obstruction of the law" by former French finance minister and new IMF chief Christine Lagarde was postponed by a top French court on Friday. The suspicions over Lagarde's role in a generous payout of public money to French tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008 were originally referred for investigation by France's senior public prosecutor in May. Michel Deléan reports on the latest events in a case threatening to undermine Lagarde's IMF mandate and the reputation of the institution.
French interior minister Claude Guéant has dropped the libel action he launched against Mediapart last year over the publication of an editorial denouncing an espionage campaign targeting journalists that had been organized from within the offices of the French presidency. The case was due to be heard in october, when Mediapart intended calling President Nicolas Sarkozy to the witness stand. Michel Deléan reports.
A senior Päris public prosecutor has found evidence suggesting French finance minister Christine Lagarde (photo), candidate to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund, acted in a manner of "obstructing the law" in the controversial arbitration procedure that awarded French tycoon Bernard Tapie 403 million euros of public funds in 2008. Mediapart has obtained exclusive access to a report prepared by prosecutor Jean-Louis Nadal, revealed here in full, in which he says Lagarde "constantly exercised her ministerial powers to reach the solution that favoured Bernard Tapie". Michel Deléan reports.
French sports minister Chantal Jouanno has announced a ministerial enquiry into Mediapart's exclusive revelations that members of the National Technical Board of the French Football Federation secretly planned ethnic quotas for training academies in order to reduce the number of young black and Arab players selected for the national teams.
French justice minister Michel Mercier this week presented before government his bill for a reform of the justice system that will see juries introduced to sentencing in lower criminal courts. Mercier defends the controversial bill, due to begin its passage through the Senate in May, as a means to "better associate the French public with the workings of justice". But it has been sharply attacked by magistrates and the opposition as a populist electoral ploy, and even by members of President Sarkozy's ruling UMP party as a retrograde move that will cripple the functioning of courts. Michel Deléan presents the evidence for the prosecution.
If authors are often inspired by police detectives, a newly-published study of Paris police archives demonstrates how French detectives were also often inspired by authors. La Police des écrivains (Writers' Police) presents a compilation of two centuries of police surveillance reports on French literary figures, which include how Victor Hugo (photo) stashed his cash in England in case of urgent exile and how Jean-Paul Sartre had a penchant for alcohol and subterranean bars where "persons of both sexes are present, dressed eccentrically, often in a neglected manner".
All his blog posts
The Mediapart Club
Join the discussion
Mediapart’s journalists also use their blogs, and participate in their own name to this space of debates, by confiding behind the scenes of investigations or reports, doubts or personal reactions to the news.
Je ne veux pas d’antisémites, de négationnistes, de racistes, de xénophobes, d’islamophobes, d’homophobes ni de franchouillards souverainistes aux plus hautes fonctions de l’Etat. J'irai voter le 7 mai.
Évoquer des « prises d'otages » ou du « terrorisme » pour disqualifier les mouvements sociaux actuels n'est pas meilleur pour la démocratie que ce qu'on prétend combattre.
En presque cinquante ans de carrière, David Bowie a expérimenté une multitude de créations, sans commettre aucune faute de goût. Promenade subjective en musique et en images.
