In an interview published on March 10th, French president Emmanuel Macron announced that parliament would debate, before the summer recess, long-awaited draft legislation to legalize what he called “assistance for dying” – in effect, assisted suicide – for patients suffering the terminal stages of debilitating illness. Caroline Coq-Chodorge reports on the substance of the bill, and the heated debate between its opponents and supporters.
The Calais area of northern France has been badly hit by flooding since December 2023. But despite the seriousness and frequency of these events, plans for yet more housing developments continue in what is already the second most built-up region in the country. Meanwhile, prime minister Gabriel Attal visited the area this Monday to review the regional resilience plan aimed at helping the area withstand weather-related disasters. Manuel Magrez reports.
The court case over the alleged Libyan funding of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign is due to begin in January 2025 and is expected to last at least four months. Prosecutors suspect that it was a senior figure in the Libyan regime, Abdullah al-Senussi, who illegally financed the Sarkozy clan. Senussi had been convicted in France over the bombing of a DC10 plane belonging to French airline UTA, in which 170 people lost their lives, including 54 French nationals. The prosecution's case is that in return for the money, Sarkozy's team sought to get an international arrest warrant for Senussi quashed. Lawyers acting for families of victims of that state-sponsored terror attack are now seeking to get them added to next year's trial as civil litigants. Fabrice Arfi reports.
The coach at an amateur club in south-west France, who had been accused of having prayed in a changing room before and after a key cup match, was effectively dismissed from his position last year without any normal disciplinary proceedings being taken against him. According to Mediapart's information, state grants to the club were suspended until the club agreed not to renew his membership registration. David Perrotin reports.
The vote by the French Parliament to enshrine the right to abortion in the French Constitution is a world first, and carries with it considerable symbolic importance. But this historic decision cannot hide the difficulties faced by women today in actually getting an abortion, nor can it disguise Emmanuel Macron's political exploitation of the issue for his own purposes, argues Mediapart's joint editor-in-chief Lénaïg Bredoux in this op-ed article.
French president Emmanuel Macron provoked a controversy last week when he said he did not rule out Western 'troops on the ground' in Ukraine. The remarks were quickly and widely rejected, both by allies in Washington, London and Berlin and by domestic political opponents too. But the president's comments did not just spark an outcry, they have also caused confusion. Did the French head of state's remarks refer to a few spies, who are already there, 50 or so demining experts - something that has been discussed - or was he instead talking about 2,000 infantry combat ready troops? As Justine Brabant reports, it seems no one really knows what the president was talking about.
The emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, made a two-day state visit to Paris earlier this week. French government documents drawn up to prepare for the trip – seen by Mediapart - show the concessions that the French presidency was prepared to grant in order to curry favour with the head of the gas-rich emirate. The visit also came against the backdrop of the crisis in Gaza in which Qatar is playing a major mediation role. France was rewarded with the announcement that Qatar, which already has substantial interests in the country including the ownership of Paris Saint-Germain football club, will now invest a further ten billion euros here. Yann Philippin and Yunnes Abzouz report.
Tensions are running high in the small village of Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier, situated within the Monts d’Ardèche natural park in southern France. The deep divisions among its population of around 440 are over a project by a local traditionalist Catholic community, the Missionary Family of Our Lady, to build a giant complex – variously described as a basilica or spiritual centre – capable of welcoming 3,500 pilgrims, situated in an area which hosts dozens of protected species of plants and creatures. But beyond environmental concerns is alarm at the infiltration of the religious community into local life, including the influence it apparently wields over the village council, the expansion of its properties in the village, and alleged intimidation of opponents of the scheme, including from far-right militants. Prisca Borrel reports from Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier.
The anti-terrorism branch of the French prosecution services this month recommended that the cement manufacturer Lafarge, and several of its former directors, be sent for trial on charges of “financing terrorism” and the “non-respect of international financial sanctions” over payments made between 2013 and 2014 to several terrorist groups, including Islamic State, to maintain the activities of its cement production plant in Syria. Mediapart has studied the 275-page document issued by the prosecution services, in which it dismisses the claims of several of the accused that France’s secret services and foreign affairs ministry were complicit in the deals made with the terrorist organisations. Fabrice Arfi reports.
The remains of the Communist wartime Resistance members Missak and Mélinée Manouchian were transferred to the Panthéon mausoleum in Paris on Wednesday, amid an official ceremony of homage led by President Emmanuel Macron. Prior to the event, he called on members of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party to abstain from attending, adding in an interview that they were not part of France’s “republican arc”. But that was simply tactical, argues Mediapart political correspondent Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article, for Macron’s positions in face of the far-right, which he has helped normalise, resemble shifting sands.
