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.
On Monday, the French government's new immigration bill was rejected by the National Assembly before it was even debated by MPs. Caught on the back foot by this resounding political defeat, supporters of President Emmanuel Macron cried foul, saying the vote was a “denial of democracy” and attacking the “petty politics” of the opposition parties. This is, to say the least, a bold argument, writes Ellen Salvi in this op-ed article, coming as it does from a government that has constantly forced through legislation and schemed in back corridors, including with the far-right.
The recording of the intervention by the emergency services is damming.
When 13-year-old Aïcha fell ill at the family home in Paris her mother called the emergency services and three fire officers – who are often the first responders for medical emergencies in France – arrived at the scene. After thirty minutes the trio left, saying the teenager was faking her suffering, even though she was semi-conscious when they went. Twelve days later Aïcha died in hospital as the result of a brain haemorrhage. Her parents wonder whether their daughter may have lived had the fire officers taken her to hospital, and whether they would have taken her illness more seriously had she not been black. They have now deposed a formal legal complaint for manslaughter. Meanwhile one of fire officers has been disciplined. David Perrotin reports.
It is not just the physical reality of humanity, of lives lost forever, that is dying in the Middle East, writes Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. It is, he argues, the very idea of humanity itself that is being destroyed by the unrestrained and limitless vengeance of the Israeli state against the Palestinian population of Gaza in response to the massacre carried out by Hamas.
Mediapart and the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network can reveal that the Greek Member of the European Parliament Eva Kaili, who is under investigation in the 'Qatargate affair', conducted an influence operation on behalf of the Gulf state, working directly with hidden lobbyists and two Qatari ministers. Kaili, who was the vice-president of the European Parliament, denies being guided in her actions by the lobbyists. Louis Colart and Yann Philippin report.
The man arrested over the murder of a German tourist near the Eiffel Tower on Saturday night, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, was convicted in 2018 for involvement in a terrorist criminal conspiracy, having previously been in contact with the killers of two French police officers and a French priest. Then, after he was released from prison, he communicated online with the man who shortly afterwards killed teacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb. Rajabpour-Miyandoab, now aged 26, subsequently managed to convince the authorities that he was a reformed character. But some of those in charge of his rehabilitation have now told Mediapart that they always harboured doubts about whether he had left the world of radicalism behind. Matthieu Suc reports.
Democracy depends on factual truths being placed at the heart of public debate rather than the relativity of opinions, writes Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. Beyond the urgent need to free the media from the control of monied interests, this was the key political question that was raised at a recent national convention on the independent press, in which Mediapart took part.
