A game of catch on the theme of retirement being played in the middle of the protest march in Paris on April 6th 2023. © Photo Bruno Arbesu / REA

After its deeply-unpopular pension reform was forced into law, the government of President Emmanuel Macron set itself a target of 100 days to calm the country and reduce the level of protest. But instead the tone and style of the protests have simply changed; from outright anger to one of mockery. As Mathieu Dejean writes, the government is right to worry about the new derision it faces. For mockery and ridicule have triumphed over inflexible governments in the past.

Louis: "It didn’t come into my head that I could be one of ‘those people’." © Photo Rozenn Le Carboulec pour Mediapart

April 23rd marks the tenth anniversary of the French parliament’s approval of legislation allowing people of the same sex the rights of marriage and child adoption. In the run-up to that, the bill was fiercely opposed in mass demonstrations organised by a movement of Catholics, the Right and the far-right. Louis was just 11-years-old when his parents took him on the marches, which he remembers as being fun. Now aged 22 and gay, he looks back on the traumatic years since, growing up in a family of homophobic, traditional Catholics, and says that he hopes to benefit himself from the same-sex marriage law, “to show my parents that one can be homo and happy”. Rozenn Le Carboulec reports.

Most of the infants died of illness during an unusally hard winter between November 1962 and March 1963. These previously unpublished photos are from the personal collection of the military camp’s then residant doctor, Paul Brugière. © Collection personnelle du docteur Paul Brugière, médecin dans le camp de Saint-Maurice

Earlier this year the lost remains of 27 infants were finally discovered in shallow graves close to a former French military camp used 60 years ago to intern Harkis, the Algerian auxiliaries who fought alongside France’s army in the Algerian war of Independence, and their families. The infants, whose parents were reluctantly admitted to France in 1962, were among 31 recorded to have died amid the harsh conditions at the isolated camp in southern France. But despite announcements of a future memorial cemetery for the children, their families are increasingly angry at the delays for a search to begin for the other missing remains, and call for the opening of an investigation into the many mysteries surrounding the events. Prisca Borrel reports.

Emmanuel Macron pictured during a conference by video link with G7 leaders and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, February 24th 2023 © Photo Christophe Petit-Tesson / Pool / AFP

President Emmanuel Macron, according to his entourage, said he had “no scruples” about walking over the rights of Parliament by using an article of the French constitution to force his reform of the pensions system through the chamber, which was denied a vote on the legislation because he knew it would be rejected. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that the move shines a clear light on a presidency which, far from acting as a barrage against the far-right, opens up a path for it by accustoming France to its anti-democratic violence and anti-egalitarian ideology.

© Photo Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas via AFP

While the overall inflation rate in France over the 12 months up to March this year was 5.6%, food prices over the same period rose by 15.8%, according to a provisional estimation by France's National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. In this interview with Mediapart, economist Florence Jany-Catrice sets out how inflation, beyond creating a fall in purchasing power, is also driving a further rise in social inequalities.

Actor Gérard Depardieu. © Illustration Simon Toupet / Mediapart avec AFP

During an investigation lasting several months Mediapart has gathered numerous testimonies that accuse actor Gérard Depardieu of inappropriate words or gestures. The accusations come from actresses, make-up artists and production staff. Often taking place in public, the events are said to have occurred during the shooting of eleven films that came out between 2004 and 2022. The director Fabien Onteniente says that on one occasion he confronted the famous French actor over his behaviour. Depardieu himself denies any criminal behaviour. Meanwhile, one actress has just given her account to the French justice system. Marine Turchi reports.

Andrey Zubitskiy and Dmitry Peskov. © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

Mediapart can reveal that close family members of Russians sanctioned after the invasion of Ukraine are continuing to use their luxury properties in France, which have escaped from being frozen by the French Treasury as assets. Among those benefiting include family members of Vladimir Putin's veteran spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and several oligarchs. The revelations emerge from a joint investigation carried out with the German NGO Civil Forum for Asset Recovery (CIFAR) and media network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). Sébastien Bourdon, Yann Philippin and Alexandre Brutelle (CIFAR) report. 

Gérald Darmanin and Emmanuel Macron at a ceremony at Versailles on March 31st 2023 in honour of the gendarme Arnaud Blanc, who was killed during an operation against illegal gold prospectors in French Guiana. © Photo Ludovic Marin / Pool / AFP

Emmanuel Macron and his supporters – including interior minister Gérald Darmanin – have not learnt the lessons from the president's first term and the fact that, twice in a row, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen made it through to the second round of a French presidential election, argues Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article. All the while, she says, the government continues to lower the level of public debate, with the far-right being the main beneficiaries.

Under the spotlight over his comments: France's interior minister Gérald Darmanin. © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart avec Sipa et AFP

In the space of one week France's high-profile minister of the interior issued a series of bold but false declarations. These assertions concerned the typical profile of the “troublemakers” present at France's recent demonstrations, the police's controversial BRAV-M motorbike unit, the type of ammunition fired at the water protests at Sainte-Soline in west France and the obstacles that prevented the emergency services from reaching people who had been badly injured at the same demonstrations. France's top administrative body the Conseil d'État described one of Gérald Darmanin's pronouncements as “false”. Matthieu Suc reports.

Patient Jean-Marie with Benjamin Rolland at the CERLAM centre, February 2023. © Photo Rozenn Le Saint pour Mediapart

Addiction to medicines that are prescribed to ease pain, anxiety or to help someone sleep is a major and very public problem in the United States. But in France the scale of the problem is significantly underestimated. Mediapart has had access to a unique clinical service in the eastern city of Lyon that specialises in dealing with patients who have become hooked on prescription drugs. Health correspondent Rozenn Le Saint reports.

Mobile gendarme units during the demonstration against the agricultural reservoirs at Sainte-Soline in west France, March 25th 2023. © Photo Yohan Bonnet / AFP

If one single proof were needed of the justness of the environmental cause, then this is provided by the frenzied repression regularly deployed against it, writes Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. From the anti-nuclear protests at Creys-Malville on the Franco-Swiss border in the 1970s to the recent demonstrations against agricultural water reservoirs at Sainte-Soline in west France, and including the sinking of the 'Rainbow Warrior' in Auckland harbour in 1985 and the anti-dam protests at Sivens in south-west France in 2014, the movement's martyrs have stood up against its opponents in France. These opponents are, he argues, proponents of a calamitous capitalism that is now paving the way for carbo-fascism.

Emmanuel Macron and his predecessor as president, François Hollande, at the Élysée, February 25th 2022. © Photo Carine Schmitt / Hans Lucas via AFP

The killing of 17-year-old Nahel by an armed police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre has made headlines in France and across the world. It has provoked angry reactions in the streets and from a number of politicians. But as Ellen Salvi writes in this op-ed article, the youngster's death has also been the subject of some shameful comments, of falsehoods, efforts at justification and attempts to play it down. She argues that for the last 20 years successive governments and a rampant far right have denied a stark reality: that of a society that is sinking as it forgets its fundamental principles and the values that stem from them.

Philosopher Michaël Lowy, politicians Clémentine Autain and Paul Magnette, and green activist Claire Lejeune. © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

From social democrats to the radical Left, leftwing parties in France are embracing or at least debating the concept of ecosocialism. As Mediapart's Mathieu Dejean writes, this collective appropriation of a radical idea that stems from the 1970s marks a new phase in the reconstruction of the French Left as it seeks to find a common view of the world.

Nasser al-Khelaifi (left) with his former major-domo Hicham Karmoussi. © Document Mediapart

The Paris public prosecution services are investigating two formal complaints, the latest filed on March 23rd, alleging that Nasser al-Khelaifi, president of the Paris Saint-Germain football club and also chairman of Qatari broadcaster BeIN Sports, illegally employed in France his former major-domo and an advisor by paying them through fake contracts as coaches with his Smash Tennis Academy in Doha. Khelaifi, one of the most powerful figures in world football, denies the accusations. Yann Philippin reports.

Azat Miftakhov pictured during his trial last year. © miftakhov.org

Russian mathematician Azat Miftakhov, serving a six-year sentence in a penal colony for supposed vandalism, is in principle eligible for release in September. But Russia’s security services, the FSB, are preparing a new case against him, using the false testimony of individuals under torture, this time for supposed terrorist activities. In this report by Antoine Perraud, two Russian anarchists exiled in France recount their ordeals at the hands of the Kremlin regime.