The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday published a ruling against France over a divorce case in which the wife was found to have been at fault for the collapse of her marriage because the mother of four had refused, over a period of several years, to have sexual relations with her husband. For the French justice system, the ECHR ruling marks the end of a notion of “marital duty” which has previously been cited by courts in apportioning the blame in divorce cases. "Marriage is no longer a sexual servitude," commented one of the divorcee's lawyers after the ruling. Marine Turchi reports.
Numerous European far-right leaders were invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Monday, in what amounted to a message to those who he considers to be his friends across the Atlantic, and those he doesn’t. The pick of the bunch to become the bridge between the new US administration and Europe appears to be Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, while her Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán comes a close second. But, as Romaric Godin reports in this analysis of Trump’s relationship with Europe’s far-right, his predatory strategy threatens to make them nothing other than his useful idiots.
French editorial cartoonist Aurel (real name Aurélien Froment) this month published an essay in the format of an album warning of the steady decline of his profession, which he argues is due to the economic difficulties of the printed press, and the hijacking of what is termed the “Charlie spirit”, the term used to describe the irreverence exercised by the team of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were gunned down by Jihadist terrorists in January 2015. “Colleagues were assassinated because of their cartoons on religious themes,” he tells Mediapart’s Yunnes Abzouz. “But that’s not a reason it should become the alpha and omega of our freedom of expression.”
An attempt to exploit the impact of Operation 'Red Hands' – the painting of hand symbols on the Holocaust memorial in Paris in May 2024 - was made via a network of several thousand fake accounts on X. French analysts found that all these online bots - plus a curious French media outlet which tried to stir up controversy - were ultimately controlled by the Kremlin. Matthieu Suc reports in this third and concluding part of a Mediapart investigation into how France foiled a Russian destabilisation plot.
Laicity is a key principle of the modern French Republic but there has long been a debate over how far it should extend; sections of the Left fear that secularism is sometimes misused to discriminate against Muslims, for example. The recent commemoration of the 2015 terror attacks, particularly the massacre at the Paris offices of satirical weekly 'Charlie Hebdo', has highlighted a shift in rhetoric from France's self-proclaimed “secular activists”. These activists no longer just focus their attacks on members of the radical-left La France Insoumise and their founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who have been accused of so-called 'Islamo-Leftism'. They now also target other elements of the French Left, including the Socialist Party, whose leadership has been criticised for “betraying social democracy”. Mathieu Dejean reports on the fault lines between militant secularists and the Left.
The team responsible for the red handprints that were painted on the Holocaust memorial in Paris in 2024 also planned the propaganda stunt that involved coffins being placed in front of the Eiffel Tower. The men arrested by the French authorities over these incidents claim to be working in the service of peace, but are in fact mainly known for their connections to Russian spies. Some clearly also have neo-Nazi sympathies. Matthieu Suc reports in this second part of a Mediapart investigation into how France foiled a Russian destabilisation plot.
The death of France’s former far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was announced on Tuesday. The founder of the Front National, now renamed the Rassemblement National, died in a hospital close to Paris at the age of 96. French historian Nicolas Lebourg, specialised in research into the far-right in France and Europe, retraces here the marking moments in the life of Le Pen, an outspoken racist and anti-Semite, whose opponents and supporters, he writes, would at least agree that he succeeded in demonstrating it was possible to change France without governing the country.
On January 7th 2015, a terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris murdered 12 people, including its editor Stéphane Charbonnier. The weekly publication's legal affairs writer Sigolène Vinson was in the office during the bloody attack by brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi but her life was spared. Ten years and three trials later, she tells Mediapart's Matthieu Suc that what helps heal her is “sunshine, sea and silence”.
On January 6th Nicolas Sarkozy took centre stage at an historic trial in Paris. He and three former ministers face charges over claims that the former president's successful 2007 election campaign was part-funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. And that the North African country – whose leader was one of the most notorious dictators on the planet – received favours in exchange. The marathon trial, unprecedented in both the nature of the charges and the profiles of the defendants, who number 13 in all, is expected to last until April 10th. It marks the culmination of a ten-year judicial investigation that, in the words of the judges carrying out the probe, has “revealed both payments and reciprocal benefits”. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the background to this momentous court case.
Nicolas Sarkozy and some of his former ministers go on trial this Monday over claims that the former French president's successful 2007 election campaign was funded by the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. In this, as in other criminal cases in which the former head of state has been implicated, his approach has been to disclaim any personal knowledge of events, even to the point of throwing his closest associates under the bus. In the current case the ex-head of state has had harsh words for his most loyal lieutenants, Brice Hortefeux and Claude Guéant. “I had no way of knowing what the reality of their lives was,” he told judges investigating the affair. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
