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.
Several thousand people gathered in the north-east French town of Arras on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of the knife attack at a local school on Friday which left a schoolteacher dead and three of his colleagues seriously wounded. The attacker, a 20-year-old man originally from the Russian Federation’s Caucasus region who arrived in France with his family in 2008, had been the subject of surveillance by France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, who considered him a potential danger for his apparent affiliation with radical Islamism. But his intention to commit an imminent attack was not identified. Matthieu Suc reports on the reasons behind the failure, and several similar previous cases in France that highlight the difficulties of intelligence services in preventing terrorist attacks.
The Predator Files investigation has revealed how the French external intelligence agency, the DGSE, cooperated very closely with the surveillance equipment firm Nexa. This is despite the fact that the French group was suspected by French prosecutors of being complicit in torture by exporting its products to dictatorial regimes. Nexa's clients have also included several French ministries and a number of the country's intelligence agencies. Yann Philippin and Matthieu Suc report.
Mediapart is part of an international investigation called 'Predator Files' which has revealed how French group Nexa sold the spy software 'Predator' to three autocratic regimes. The same media investigation shows that, after making direct contact with President Emmanuel Macron, the company used his former bodyguard and personal security adviser Alexandre Benalla to try to sell spyware to Saudi Arabia. This was despite the murder of Saudi regime critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Yet 18 months after these deeply embarrassing facts for the Élysée were unearthed, a judicial investigation has stalled. Yann Philippin and Antton Rouget report.
France's justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti is due to stand trial this November over an alleged “unlawful conflict of interest”. He will appear before the Cour de Justice de la République (CJR), France's special court reserved for ministers being tried over acts they carried out as part of their official duties. Mediapart has spoken to judges, legal experts and politicians who are concerned about the nature of a trial in which the country's justice minister will confront prosecutors who are answerable to him in the workplace … and in a courtroom where most of those judging him are politicians. Fabrice Arfi and Michel Deléan report.
In recent weeks voluntary groups who help victims of domestic violence in France have been obliged to refuse some women a place in safe accommodation. This follows directives issued by state prefectures around the country. These orders, which have been seen by Mediapart, instruct these help groups to cut back on the amount of emergency hotel accommodation that they can offer women in need. Audrey Guiller and Nolwenn Weiler report.
France's far-right Rassemblement National party recently announced that it has repaid the controversial loan it took out with Russian financial institutions. In doing so, Marine Le Pen's party is seeking both to portray itself as a good financial manager and remove what has become a political millstone around its neck since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet the party's announcement came just five days after revelations by Mediapart raised fresh concerns over the close links between the the French party and the Putin regime at the time the loan was arranged. As Marine Turchi reports, questions still linger over exactly how the loan was obtained and the commissions that were paid to arrange it.
