The birth rate in France fell in 2023 by 6.6% year-on-year, according to figures released this week by France’s national institute for statistics and economic studies, INSEE. Just hours after the figures were released on January 16th, French President Emmanuel Macron raised the issue during a televised press conference, when he notably raised issues of appeal to a rightwing electorate, when he argued for a “demographic rearming”. In this interview with Mediapart's Youmni Kezzouf, the eminent and veteran French demographer and historian Hervé Le Bras, director of studies at the prestigious School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, gives his view of what he calls the “grotesque” comments by Macron, and the reasons behind the fall in births both in France, in Europe and beyond.

Shortly after Amélie Oudéa-Castéra's appointment last week, Mediapart revealed that Emmanuel Macron's new education minister sent her three children, now aged 13 to 18, to a “reactionary” Catholic private school near her home in Paris. The minister's defence of her actions – she claims her local state school did not properly cover staff absences – went down badly with teaching unions and parents' groups as well as opposition politicians. Her argument has also now been undermined by comments from a teacher at that state school where Amélie Oudéa-Castéra briefly sent one of her children, leading to damaging claims that the new minister has lied.

Europe's and North America's claims to support the universality of human rights are constantly contradicted by their actions. As they stand by and do nothing while the state of Israel destroys Palestine, it is instead South Africa that is today defending these universal values, argues Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article.

Emmanuel Macron has chosen the current director of the French Treasury to take up the strategically-vital position of chief of staff to the new prime minister Gabriel Attal. Like Attal himself, the new chief of staff Emmanuel Moulin represents 'Macronism' in his own style. He has a network of contacts that includes supporters of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has moved seamlessly between the public and private sectors, and has a distinctly pro-business vision of the economy. Ilyes Ramdan and Mathias Thépot report on the career of this key behind-the-scenes figure who will help shape the new government.

On Tuesday  French president Emmanuel Macron chose  Gabriel Attal to replace prime minister Élisabeth Borne, who had been dismissed the day before. At the age of 34, the former socialist activist becomes the youngest head of government in France since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958. Yet as Mediapart's political correspondent Ilyes Ramdani reports, though former education minister Attal is popular with the public, unless there is a change of direction or style in the government his future political path could turn out to be just as impossible as that of his predecessor.

The food nutrition labelling system known as Nutri-Score was first introduced in France in 2017 and later adopted by Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Holland and Luxembourg. The aim of the five-coloured label scheme is to help guide consumers towards eating healthier produce. But on the pretext of defending Italian food, Giorgia Meloni's government and the Italian far right have so far prevented this system from being rolled out across the rest of the European Union. Karl Laske reports.

New legislation adopted by the French parliament in December toughens up existing laws on immigration, including a significant reduction of the rights of non-EU foreign nationals for access to welfare benefits despite paying social security contributions. Faïza Zerouala reports on the fears expressed by NGOs and charitable associations that many families targeted by the law will be plunged into poverty conditions. They now pin their hopes that the most restrictive measures will be rejected by the Constitutional Council, which has yet to rule on the legality of the legislation before it can be promulgated.

This week, the French justice minister announced provisional figures that suggest the number of femicides – the killing of a female because of her gender – had fallen year-on-year in 2023 by around 20 percent, a claim which is hotly contested by feminist associations. For the recorded numbers of femicides and crimes of domestic violence against women in France have remained on average largely stable over recent years, despite the increased attention given to the problem. In this interview with Mediapart, the historian Christelle Taraud gives her view on why femicides continue at an appalling level, and why women often suffer greater violence in the wake of high-profile feminist mobilisations.

The French liberal and conservative Right has increasingly adopted the xenophobic terms of language employed by the far-right, to the point where the once-distinct lines separating the two camps have become blurred, if not dissolved. The latest example is a comment by Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister Édouard Philippe, a centre-right presidential hopeful, who placed “anti-white racism” on a par with other forms of racism. Mediapart’s  Fabien Escalona turned to political scientist Émilien Houard-Vial, a specialist of the contemporary French Right, for his analysis of why and how what was taboo has become normalized.

France’s new legislation “to control immigration”, approved by a vote in parliament on Tuesday, transforms the xenophobic programme of the far-right into law, making the foreigner a public enemy and attacking the universal principle of the equality of rights, argues Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. History, he writes, will record that the person responsible for this disgrace is the very president who was elected by voters who took to the urns to prevent his far-right rival from gaining power.