A news story stating that a Muslim youth was beaten up on Boxing Day for having celebrated Christmas made the headlines in France. The only problem is that, on closer inspection, there is little evidence that the main claim in the story is true. This did not stop it being reported by many media, or prevent police trade unions and the interior minister Gérald Darmanin from expressing their condemnation of the alleged motives of the attack. David Perrotin and Ilyes Ramdani report on the making of a 'fake news' story.
On January 13th 1963 the president of the West African nation of Togo, Sylvanus Olympio, who had been a prominent figure in that country's fight for independence from France, was assassinated in the capital Lomé. Though the killing shocked the world and marked the first coup d'État in post-colonial Africa, there has never been a proper investigation into who carried out his murder and why. Today, 58 years later, his family are still seeking to “know the truth” about Olympio's death. They are calling for access to France's official archives, hoping that diplomatic reports from the former colonial power will help shed light on this unsolved affair. Fanny Pigeaud reports.
In an ongoing judicial investigation in France into suspected corruption surrounding the awarding of the 2022 football World Cup to Qatar, evidence seized at the Paris offices of US firm Colony Capital suggests a well-remunerated post handed to Laurent Platini, son of former football star and UEFA president Michel Platini, by Qatari sovereign fund QSI may have been linked to its purchase of French football club PSG. The probe is focused on a crucial lunch meeting at the Élysée Palace in 2010 hosted by then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and attended among others by Michel Platini and the then crown prince of Qatar. Yann Philippin unravels a complex case involving heads of state, business, diplomacy and arrangements behind closed doors.
It was ten years ago this month that the desperate act of self-immolation by street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid prompted not only the so-called “Jasmine Revolution” that would topple the regime of strongman president Ben Ali, but also set in train the “Arab Spring” revolt that spread across North Africa. Mediapart spoke to three young men from Sidi Bouzid who took part in the 2010 protests over Bouazizi's plight, and who reflect on what has become of their revolt that created hope of a new democratic future for their country. Lilia Blaise reports.
French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly procured young women and minors for the late Jeffrey Epstein, was taken into police custody for questioning on Wednesday at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport as he prepared to board a flight to Senegal. Brunel, 74, is a central figure in ongoing investigations into Epstein’s suspected sex-trafficking network in France, and is himself accused by several women of rape and sexual assault.
In recent months France's interior minister Gérald Darmanin has ordered the expulsion of around a dozen Chechens from the country. This does not just trample over fundamental rights of asylum and the country's commitments under European treaties, says Mediapart's co-founder François Bonnet in this op-ed article. He argues it also means that France is effectively collaborating with Chechen's notorious leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a man accused of overseeing the murder and torture of his opponents.
The prosecution has called for jail sentences to be handed out in the Paris corruption trial featuring Nicolas Sarkozy. But in their closing speeches lawyers acting for the former president and his fellow accused, lawyer and close friend Thierry Herzog and retired judge Gilbert Azibert, argued that there was no evidence at all to back the prosecution's claims of corruption and influence peddling. Judgement in the trial has been reserved until March 1st 2021. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan reports from the end of an historic trial, the first in which a former French president has been tried on corruption charges.
Ali Benarbia, the former Manchester City and Monaco player who became a prominent television sports pundit on French television and radio, has been told to pay back taxes of just under 4 million euros by the French tax authorities. Mediapart has learnt that the former Algerian international was paid via a fictitious company in Qatar and claimed to be living in the Middle Eastern country. In fact, he and his family were resident in Paris, tax investigators found. Yann Philippin and Matthieu Suc report.
When Nicolas Sarkozy was being questioned by judges over claims that his 2007 president election campaign was part-funded by the Libyan regime, he agreed to hand over his official diaries from that period. However, Mediapart understands that his lawyer has now told the judges that the former president is unable to provide any of them. This sudden about-face comes right in the middle of Nicolas Sarkozy's ongoing corruption trial, in which those very same diaries play a prominent role. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
The death was announced late on Wednesday December 2nd 2020 of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, aged 94, who was president of France from 1974 to 1981. Here Mediapart's François Bonnet compares Giscard's term of office with the current presidency of Emmanuel Macron. He argues that in a provisional assessment of their achievements the record of the present incumbent of the Élysée does not compare well with his predecessor, especially on social issues. However, there are many similarities between the two men and their presidencies, including the way they came to power and, most ominously, their subsequent slide towards more repressive policies.
