France went to the polls on Sunday for the first round of legislative elections to elect the 577 members of the next parliament. The vote is crucial for the recently re-elected president Emmanuel Macron, who needs to retain a majority to push through his planned reforms of pensions and the welfare system. In the event, Macron’s centre-right coalition ended neck-and-neck with the newly formed NUPES alliance of the broad Left, which now represents France’s principal opposition, and all is now to play out in the second round next weekend. Follow our live coverage of the first-round results and reactions as they came in through the evening. Reporting by Graham Tearse and Michael Streeter.

Jean-Luc Godard, November 30th 2010 in Zurich. © Photo Fabrice Coffrini / AFP

Widely acclaimed French-Swiss cinema director Jean-Luc Godard, regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation, and a major figure of France’s New Wave cinema movement, died in Switzerland on Tuesday in an assisted suicide at the age of 91. Late last year he gave a rare interview to Mediapart’s Ludovic Lamant and Jade Lindgaard, who travelled to meet him at his home in Switzerland, when nothing went quite as had been planned, and which we republish here.

A report on the October 17th 1961 massacre sent to Charles de Gaulle, and his hand-written response. © Archives nationales

Documents unearthed by Mediapart in France’s national archives, and never before published, reveal that the true horrific extent of the covered-up massacre by police of Algerian demonstrators in Paris on the night of October 17th 1961 was very quickly made known to then president Charles de Gaulle and his advisors. They show that de Gaulle had instructed in writing that those who perpetrated the crimes be brought to justice. But in the end, no-one would ever be prosecuted over the slaughter, which historians have estimated claimed the lives of several hundred people, many of who drowned in the River Seine. Fabrice Arfi reports. 

Amid galloping inflation, French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne this week announced that households with the lowest incomes will be given a one-off financial payment at the end of the summer in emergency aid. The government is also to study the feasibility of implementing a regular payment to the neediest which will be specifically for the purchase of food, what has been dubbed a “food cheque”, although exactly what form this might take is unclear. Humanitarian associations have greeted the moves with caution, among them the Secours Catholique which likened the ‘cheque’ to “a tree that hides the forest” of the crisis. Faïza Zerouala reports.  

‘No to France’: anti-France demonstrators in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, May 14th 2022. © AFP

Anti-French sentiment is gaining ground across a number of West African countries, where the presence of the former colonial power, engaged in fighting armed jihadist insurgents across the Sahel, is challenged by growing Russian influence and popular anger against its history of support for strongman regimes. Protests against France’s military presence in the region have now spilled over into Chad, France’s key African ally, governed by a junta, where last month French nationals were targeted in the capital N’Djamena and petrol stations belonging to oil giant Total were ransacked. Rémi Carayol reports.

The types of posters drawn up by the ruling party, the LREM. © Montage Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

Candidates standing for Emmanuel Macron's La République en Marche (LREM) party in the 2017 Parliamentary elections could not get enough of the newly-elected president's name and image on their campaign literature. It is a very different story in this year's Parliamentary elections, which are to be held over two rounds on June 12th and June 19th. A number of candidates for the ruling party and its allies have decided to campaign under their own own name rather than that of the recently re-elected president. Some candidates facing a tough battle against the Left or far-right look upon campaign photos of Macron as a “red rag” to disgruntled voters. Ellen Salvi reports.

Lumina Services employees protest in front of Amazon's premises at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen. © Photo Milena Aellig / Radio France via Maxppp

Seven workers originally from Africa were employed by a private delivery firm that worked for the giant American company in northern France from October 2021 until being laid off in February 2022. During that time they worked very long hours for low and often irregular pay. The workers insist that Amazon must have known that they were being exploited. The American group denies the workers' claims. Meanwhile the employees' case against the subcontractor is soon to be heard at an industrial tribunal. Dan Israel reports.

Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, September 5th 2022. © Photo Ludovic Marin / AFP

This Thursday September 8th the French president inaugurated his new national council designed to debate potential reforms for his second term of office. However, the launch of the Conseil National de la Refondation, as it is called, has simply highlighted the difficulties and challenges facing Emmanuel Macron's presidency following his re-election in April: its scope is vague, the opposition has refused to take part and even his own political camp has found it hard to muster much enthusiasm for the initiative. Analysis by Ilyes Ramdani.

Pap Ndiaye, the new education minister, taking over at the ministry, May 20th 2022. © Photo Emmanuel Dunand / AFP

The appointment of black historian Pap Ndiaye as education minister in Emmanuel Macron's new government has quickly brought to the surface the structural racism of French society and its political class. In this opinion article, Mediapart's Ilyes Ramdani argues that the reaction of the government to this tide of racism, and above all the response of President Emmanuel Macron himself, will set the tone for his new presidential term.

Paris, August 28th 2019. Emmanuel Macron at the conference for ambassadors at the Élysée. © Photo Denis Allard / REA

A reform promoting “internal mobility” has just been introduced at France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ostensible aim of Emmanuel Macron's measure is to make the French senior civil service more flexible and less elitist. However, many diplomats see the American-style reforms at the ministry as a pretext to enable the head of state to appoint his political friends or business executives to plum diplomatic posts. They also think the president is settling scores with the diplomatic corps, whom the Élysée royally detests. The depth of feeling at the ministry is so strong that trade unions representing diplomats have called for a strike on June 2nd. René Backmann reports.

The Élysée during Emmanuel Macron's investiture, May 7th 2022. © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

After a delay of 26 days, on Friday May 20th Emmanuel Macron finally appointed the 27 members of the new government under recently-installed prime minister Élisabeth Borne. As Ilyes Ramdani reports, its composition is strikingly similar to the old government and is still anchored firmly to the right. Historian Pap Ndiaye, who was a surprise appointment as minister of education, represents something of an anomaly alongside the rest of the ministerial team.

An undated French army photo of what it says are Russian mercenaries in northern Mali. © © Photo Armée française via AP / Sipa

Mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian private paramilitary organisation with close ties to the Kremlin, have been linked to summary executions, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests in Mali, where they are officially presented as “instructors” for the West African country’s army in its war against jihadist insurgents. While the Malian authorities deny that their Russian allies take part in direct combat, numerous eyewitness accounts tell a very different story. Paul Lorgerie reports from Mali.

A former executive of European aerospace giant Airbus has been placed under investigation for alleged corruption, criminal conspiracy and money laundering by French magistrates probing the suspected illegal funding of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The move centres on secret payments made to a business intermediary close to the former French president. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

An exercise yard at Fresnes prison, June 27th 2022. © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

A video showing prisoners go-karting and taking part in other competitions during an event imitating a popular reality TV show at France's second-biggest prison has caused a political row. On Saturday, justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti waded into the controversy by promising an “investigation” into the event held at Fresnes prison south of Paris in July.  It was organised by the prison's authorities and had been approved by senior managers in the prisons department, part of the Ministry of Justice, while officials insist it received no public funding. In this opinion article, Camille Polloni says it only took a few politicians on the far-right to express outrage over the event for the justice minister to overlook the facts and to dance to their political tune.

Labour Day marchers in Paris with flags for a ‘Union populaire’, May 1st 2022. © Photo Thomas Coex / AFP

Following a divided, and for some, catastrophic, showing in the presidential elections in April, the principal parties that make up the French Left have this week agreed an electoral alliance ahead of parliamentary elections to be held in June. In this opinion article, Mediapart's publishing editor Edwy Plenel hails the pact as a vital opportunity, as welcome as it was unexpected, to counterbalance the enormous political power of the re-elected president.