The inhabitants of Syrian Kurdistan are surrounded by urgent threats and challenges: attacks from Turkish troops, the enduring threat from jihadists, the refusal by the new regime in Damascus to consider any form of confederate status for their region and now the historic pronouncement by Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has called on his militant group PKK to lay down its weapons after a long armed struggle. Yet the Kurds in Rojava, as this area of north and east Syria is also known, are determined to defend the de facto autonomy they have secured since 2013 – along with the extraordinary women’s revolution that this independence has made possible. Mediapart's Rachida El Azzouzi reports from the region.

On Wednesday evening President Emmanuel Macron spoke to the nation in a sombre televised address about the current international situation involving Ukraine, the United States, Russia and European security. The French head of state said the country was facing the start of a “new era” in which “the threat from the East is returning”. In doing so he sought to prepare French public opinion for the adoption of radical budgetary choices in order to finance greater military capability. As Justine Brabant and Ilyes Ramdani report, in doing so the French president seems to have opted for cuts in other public services to pay for defence spending rather than funding it through increased government borrowing.

A criminal investigation into events at the Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram private school in south-west France is continuing. Meanwhile Mediapart can reveal that sixteen victims of sexual violence committed by religious figures at the Catholic institution have already been compensated over allegations that are now time-barred under the criminal law. There are also discussions taking place about whether and how this approach of acknowledging abuse and paying compensation can also be extended to victims of laypeople connected to the school. At the same time, prime minister François Bayrou continues to insist that he was never informed about abuse at the institution, which is in his political fiefdom. David Perrotin and Antton Rouget report.

The authorities have announced their intention to appeal after an administrative court ordered the suspension of work on the highly-controversial Toulouse-Castres A69 motorway in south-west France. The court – the first in France to strike down plans for a motorway on environmental grounds - annulled the original permission that had allowed work to start on the planned 33-mile route. Yet though the government has reiterated its determination to forge ahead with this major infrastructure project, none of the economic and social reasons it gives to justify this approach reflect the reality on the ground, argues Jade Lindgaard in this op-ed article.

In the late 1990s, an initial criminal investigation into sexual assaults at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram near Pau in south-west France collapsed following the release from custody of the school's former director. The gendarme in charge of the probe at the time says he was told that François Bayrou – now France's prime minister – intervened with the chief prosecutor over the case involving the prestigious private Catholic establishment, which is located in his political fiefdom and which his own children attended. Bayrou himself has denied any such intervention took place. A lawyer representing victims in the abuse scandal has now called for an inquiry into events. And in an interview with Mediapart the retired gendarme, Alain Hontangs, says he would welcome such a move. David Perrotin and Antton Rouget report.

Jim P., a French citizen employed as a butler, was given a suspended 18-month prison sentence by a French court on Friday for stealing from his former employer Sergei Pugachev, a former Russian oligarch turned critic of Vladimir Putin. In reality, Jim P. had been spying on his boss with the help of a London-based private intelligence-gathering company called Diligence who were themselves apparently working on behalf of a Russian state organisation. Gabrielle Leroyer reports on this intriguing saga.

The trial in Paris of five jihadists accused of the kidnappings and detention of four French journalists in Syria in 2013, and the perpetration of “acts of torture and barbarity” against their captives, which now enters its second week, has been hearing harrowing accounts of the survivors’ experiences at the hands of the Islamic State group. It also heard the moving accounts by the wife and two daughters of British aid worker David Haines, who was held alongside the French hostages and finally beheaded by his Islamic State captors. Matthieu Suc reports.

After Palestine, Ukraine has become the second victim of a pact of oligarchs established between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, writes Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel, who argues that by promoting and imposing a law of the strongest versus the principle of an equality of rights, their alliance amounts, at a global level, to the domination of a Mafia-like capitalism.

The trial opened in Paris on Monday of five jihadists accused of the kidnapping and detention of four French journalists in Syria in 2013 and the perpetration of “acts of torture and barbarity” at a hospital in Aleppo taken over by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant group. Relatives of British aid worker David Haines, who was held alongside the French hostages before he was later decapitated, are present at the month-long trial as civil parties to the case, as is also his Italian colleague and fellow captive Federico Motka. Matthieu Suc reports on the background of the case and the evidence that emerged from almost ten years of investigations.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou faced more questions in parliament on Wednesday over Mediapart’s revelations that he failed to intervene in a scandal of violence and sexual assaults against pupils of a Catholic secondary school in his political fiefdom in south-west France, despite being made aware of the events. He told parliament that he was “never” informed of the attacks. Mediapart can reveal documents and first-hand accounts that indicate the contrary. David Perrotin and Antton Rouget report.