Sergei Chemezov with Vladimir Putin, May 8th 2017. © Photo Alexei Nikolsky / présidence russe / Tass / Abaca

In this second part of a lengthy interview he gave to Mediapart this month, oligarch Sergei Pugachev, once a Kremlin insider close to Vladimir Putin, says one of the Russian president’s key allies, a former fellow KGB officer, Sergei Chemezov, regularly negotiated secret commissions on arms deals which were paid into offshore accounts for the benefit of both Chemezov and Putin. According to Pugachev, that was also the case in an ill-fated deal for Russia’s purchase from France of several Mistral amphibious assault vessels.

Christophe Naudin, June 2021. © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

The trial of 20 individuals accused of variously perpetrating or helping to carry out the November 13th 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris continues. As part of its regular coverage of the hearings, Mediapart is publishing the first-hand reactions of seven victims of the massacres as they take part in, and follow, the court proceedings. Here, schoolteacher Christophe Naudin, who survived the shooting massacre at the Bataclan concert hall in which one of his closest friends died, reflects on the five weeks during which the civil parties have been giving evidence, and begins by recounting his own turn, last week, at taking to the witness stand.

A Paris march protesting against Islamophobia, November 10th 2019. © Photo Karine Pierre / hans Lucas via AFP

A number of Muslim organisations in France considered by the government to be linked to radical Islamic movements have been dissolved by decree since the gruesome October 2020 terrorist murder of school teacher Samuel Paty. While some of the dissolutions have been criticised as unjustified and counter to public freedoms, the broad French Left of political parties and civil society stands accused of shying away from an issue that is a political hot potato, instead choosing to observe what the head of one Muslim association called a “deafening silence”.  Mathilde Goanec reports.

Dominique Legresy, mayor of the village of Corn in south-west France. © Photo Nicolas Cheviron pour Mediapart

Introduced in France this summer, a “health pass” attesting that the holder is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, or has recently tested negative to the coronavirus, is required for gaining access to a wide range of public venues. This month, as the government moves to extend its power to impose the pass through to next summer, Mediapart took to the road to gather reactions to the restrictions in the lesser populated rural areas of central and south-west France, where local concerns contrast with those in crowded urban zones. Here, Nicolas Cheviron reports from the village of Corn, whose mayor, Dominique Legresy, a fervent opponent of the pass, confides how he tries “to allow things to happen” without breaking the law.

Pupils and teachers gather at the Pierre d'Aragon secondary school at Muret in south-west France on November 2nd 2020, in homage to Samuel Paty. © Photo Lionel Bonaventure / AFP

On October 16th 2020 history and geography teacher Samuel Paty was murdered near his school in the north-west suburbs of Paris where he had previously shown pupils caricatures of Muhammad as part of a lesson. A year later, Mediapart visited a similar-sized community at Alès in southern France to speak to teachers there about life in the classroom following a brutal killing that shocked the nation. They told Mediapart about their hopes, their fears and their complicated relations with pupils who they say are being drip fed with 'fake news'. Some also expressed their anger about an education system they consider to be too passive in the face of the current situation. Prisca Borrel reports.

Claude Guéant, on October 18th 2021, arriving for the start of one of several trials targeting him, this one in Paris over the misuse of public funds at the Élysée Palace during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency. © Stéphane De Sakutin / AFP

Former French interior minister Claude Guéant, who served for years as chief of staff of Nicolas Sarkozy before and after he became president, received 500,000 euros paid through a complex money trail that led back to a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, a Paris appeal court has confirmed. The payment was made when Guéant, dubbed “the cardinal” because of his power and influence as Sarkozy’s right-hand man, was secretary general of the Élysée Palace. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

The former president of the antitrust body the Autorité de la concurrence, Isabelle de Silva, who was removed by Emmanuel Macron. © ERIC PIERMONT / AFP

Abruptly and without any warning, the Élysée decided that it was not renewing Isabelle de Silva's contract as the president of France's competition authority the Autorité de la Concurrence from October 13th. The decision, which has reportedly surprised and dismayed government ministers as well as many observers, was taken so late that a successor has not yet been lined up. The main theory to explain Emmanuel Macron's shock move is that the highly-respected De Silva was seen as an obstacle to the proposed merger between two private French TV companies, TF1 and the smaller M6, a tie-up that the Élysée favours. More generally, the independent Autorité de la Concurrence is also seen as a block to Emmanuel Macron's aim of creating large-scale national business champions. Martine Orange reports.

The courtroom used for the trial relating to the Paris terrorist attacks of November 13th 2015. © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

The trial of 20 individuals accused of variously perpetrating or helping with the carrying out of the November 13th 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris is continuing, in proceedings that are expected to last nine months. As part of its regular coverage of the trial, Mediapart is publishing the first-hand reactions and reflections of seven victims of the massacres as they follow the court proceedings. Here Roman, aged 30, who escaped alive after terrorists attacked La Belle Équipe restaurant where he was dining with friends, gives his evidence to the court about the attacks and describes the events that preceded it.

Jean-Marc Sauvé, president of the independent CIASE commission into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, presenting his report in Paris on October 5th 2021. © Photo Thomas Coex / AFP

On Tuesday October 5th a report revealed the shocking scale of child sex abuse inside the French Catholic Church over many decades. The report's authors estimate that 330,000 minors have been the victims of sexual abuse within the church since 1950, a majority of them at the hands of ordained clergy. Since the report's publication the overall reaction from the political classes, both Left and Right, has seemed timid. Some politicians, however, are calling for the courts to intervene and for the church to undergo deep reform. Mathieu Dejean, Mathilde Goanec, Pauline Graulle and Ilyes Ramdani report.

Éric Zemmour, Vladimir Poutin and Marine Le Pen © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart avec AFP

The French presidential election is about to get underway in earnest with President Emmanuel Macron finally set to announce his candidature ahead of the elections in April. According to opinion polls his two main rivals are both from the far-right: the Rassemblement National president Marine Le Pen and maverick polemicist Éric Zemmour. Yet both are set to be embarrassed by the far-right's long-held support of Vladimir Putin at a time when Russia has just sparked outrage around the world by invading Ukraine. As historian Nicolas Lebourg reports, the two candidates will find it hard to reconcile the far-right's general support for Putin's regime and the risk of being seen as traitors to French national interests.

Crude oil containers on the shores of Lake Albert in the west of Uganda, January 24th 2020. © Photo Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP

He has not spoken about it publicly. But behind the scenes the French head of state Emmanuel Macron has written to the president of Uganda supporting the role of French oil firm Total in developing an oilfield and a  lengthy new oil pipeline in the East African country. In the capital Kampala, meanwhile, the French embassy has  been wholeheartedly lobbying for the French multinational. Yet the projects are opposed by environmental and human rights groups who say they are not just bad for the climate but will also displace thousands of local people from their land. Mediapart's environment correspondent Jade Lindgaard reports.

© Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP

On September 29th 2021 the Élysée officially unveiled a new commission to help fight against conspiracy theories and disinformation. Officially called the 'Enlightenment in the digital age' commission, President Emmanuel Macron wants it to champion science, reason and truth and come up with new policy options in an era where social media in particular is awash with a bewildering array of views and theories. Critics, however, accuse the head of state of wanting to impose his own narrative ahead of next April's presidential election. Already the membership of the commission has been bitterly criticised, in particular its chair, social scientist Gérald Bronner. And after also coming under fire another member, Professor Guy Vallancien, a high-profile urologist, has just resigned from the body. Joseph Confavreux and Ellen Salvi report.

A monitoring room in the Hospices civils de Lyon paediatric A&E service. © CCC

The medical profession has been on a steep learning curve about the consequences, notably long-term, of infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the Covid-19 disease it causes. But mystery remains over many aspects of the virus, and in particular about its effects, and true infection rates, among the very young. Caroline Coq-Chodorge reports from the south-east French city of Lyon, where paediatricians with the country’s second-largest teaching hospital group recount their findings.    

Olaf Scholz, the SPD’s candidate to become Germany’s new chancellor, September 27th 2021. © Christof Stache / AFP

Germany’s social democrat SPD party came first in the country’s parliamentary elections on September 26th, garnering just more than a quarter of votes cast. It places the centre-left party in prime position to form a new coalition government, which would see Olaf Scholz, the party’s candidate for chancellor, succeed the outgoing Angela Merkel. But, writes Fabien Escalona in this analysis of the wider implications of the election, the knife-edge victory of the once moribund SPD is very much a relative one, and is far from auguring a resurgence of the social democrat movement in Europe, despite similarly fragile recent wins in Nordic countries.

Nadine Ribet-Reinhart, whose son Valentin died in the shooting attack at the Bataclan concert hall. © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

The trial of 20 individuals accused of variously perpetrating or helping with the perpetration of the November 13th 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris this week entered its third week, in what is just the beginning of a legal marathon that is expected to last nine months. As part of its regular coverage of the hearings, Mediapart is publishing the first-hand reactions and reflections of seven victims of the massacres as they follow the court proceedings. Here, Nadine Ribet-Reinhart, whose 26-year-old son was among 90 people massacred at the Bataclan concert hall, and Georges Salines, who lost his 28-year-old daughter in the same attack, write about their initial experiences of a trial that has been almost six years in the making.