Julius Mwale, presented by Forbes magazine as “one of Kenya’s top entrepreneurs”, is fêted for his rags-to-riches life story in which he claims to have created a “multi-billion-dollar” company in the US. With ambitious and well-publicised projects to build pioneering smart cities in Kenya and Senegal, he enjoys rubbing shoulders with African presidents and celebrities from the worlds of entertainment and sports. But this investigation by Mediapart tells a different story, one of a trail of claims for unpaid bills, disputes with investors and lenders, and unfinished projects. Clément Bonnerot and Sonia Rolley report.
For the first time, three major French banks and a large insurance group face a criminal complaint for alleged money laundering linked to the deforestation of the Amazon. The complaint has been deposed against banks BNP Paribas, BPCE and Crédit Agricole and insurance firm Axa. The Paris-based advocacy and litigation association behind the move, Sherpa, say that these financial institutions “cannot have been unaware that they were financing illegal activities”. Jade Lindgaard reports on this ground-breaking action.
The planned presence of the far-right in Paris this Sunday at a demonstration against anti-Semitism which has been organised by the presidents of the French Parliament's two chambers has left the Right embarrassed and the Left divided. As Ellen Salvi explains, this situation is the direct result of several years of deliberate efforts to create political confusion, fed by Emmanuel Macron and his supporters.
In recent months Siddiq Haftar, the eldest son of Libyan military strongman and suspected war criminal Khalifa Haftar, has been seeking to establish his international credentials as he eyes a possible bid to be his country's president one day. One of his ambitions was to be greeted in style at the European Parliament, and he duly visited the institution in September. But, as Mediapart reveals, the visit, led by a media-friendly imam and a far-right Member of the European Parliament, turned to fiasco. Yann Philippin and Antton Rouget report.
The people of Gaza are being engulfed by rivers of blood. And part of our humanity is being swept away with them, write Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux and Carine Fouteau in this op-ed article. There is an urgent need for compassion, public pressure and politics, they say, to halt the deaths of civilians - including many children.
In 2019 a report from the French domestic intelligence agency the DGSI listed the “influential intermediaries” that were used by Russia in France during the run up to the European elections. The only four French political figures cited in this document were current or past members of Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (RN). Among them was an Franco-Russian RN adviser at the European Parliament. Matthieu Suc and Marine Turchi report.
Supporters of independence for France's overseas département of Martinique believe that having their own 'official language' and flag is a way of rediscovering their culture. In this respect the Caribbean island's capital Fort-de-France sees itself as being on the cutting edge when it comes to identity issues. Julien Sartre reports on attempts to win greater autonomy for the island.
Billionaire French businessman François-Henri Pinault has a taste for jetting around in his private Bombardier plane. As a result, he became one of the happy few named and shamed for their disproportionate contribution to climate change by spewing thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from their private jets. Pinault, whose luxury group Kering boasts of its green credentials, changed the registration details of his aircraft to disappear from the public radar. But the French collective association Mémoire vive found the re-registered plane, and details of its journeys. Mickaël Correia reports.
Over the past five years in France, one person has died and at least 35 others have been wounded, many seriously, by the hard rubber projectiles fired from supposedly non-lethal “defence” guns, called LBDs, used by police on crowd-control missions. While LBDs have left demonstrators and bystanders with shocking life-changing wounds, including the irreversible blinding of eyes and skull fractures, Mediapart has discovered that the rules surrounding the minimum distance between police officers using the weapon and their target have been loosened. Pascale Pascariello reports.
The murder of a teacher, and the serious wounding of three other staff in an apparent terrorist knife attack at a secondary school the north-east French town of Arras on October 13th has prompted intense debate on how to improve security in schools in France. It has heightened concern over a series of violent incidents at schools in recent years, including the stabbing murder and decapitation in 2020 of a teacher in a Paris suburb, also in a terrorist attack. Teachers’ unions have warned against proposed measures that would turn schools into fortresses, while existing security arrangements, such as alarms and fencing, have for long been left in disrepair. Education correspondent Mathilde Goanec reports.
