French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday wounded up his official visit to Morocco, in which he sealed a re-warming of relations with the kingdom after several years of tensions. One of the major factors in that process was his recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Macron led a delegation of French companies on his visit, which have signed multi-billion dollar deals to invest in the territory. However, as Ilyes Ramdani reports from Rabat, there are doubts over the legality of the economic incursion into a land annexed by Morocco, but also claimed by an independence movement of the local Sahrawi people, while considered by the UN to be the last “non-self-governing” terrirory on the African continent.
In a riposte at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that his country is waging a war of civilisations, French President Emmanuel Macron last Thursday said he was “not sure that one defends a civilisation by spreading barbarism oneself”. It was the latest example of Macron’s hardening stance towards the Israeli government, which has included his calls for sanctions on arms sales, and the strained relations with Netanyahu in particular. Ilyes Ramdani reports on the background to the French president’s shifting position over the Middle East conflict.
Israel does not intend to bring the war in Gaza and Lebanon to a halt with its military successes against Hamas and the Hezbollah, writes Mediapart co-founder and former publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. Israel’s war aim, beyond the riposte to the October 7th 2023 Hamas attacks, is to bring an end to the project for a Palestinian state, and its supporters, he argues, and everything must be done to halt this unending war.
The new French government under prime minister Michel Barnier plans to make savings of up to 60 million euros through tax rises and spending cuts. At least five billion euros of these scheduled savings in the 2025 budget – which will be debated by MPs this week - will hit France's local authorities, to the dismay and concern of regional political leaders. Here, mayors from three very different communities all tell Mediapart of the real-life consequences that these cuts will have locally, in particular on public services and in adapting to climate change. Interviews by Ilyes Ramdani.
Last summer the town of Échirolles in south-east France witnessed a surge of violence as drug-related shootings left two people wounded. The town, which is in the suburbs of the city of Grenoble, is now trying to fight back and the mayor recently wrote to President Emanuel Macron pleading for more resources to be able to tackle the problem of drug dealing and its impact on local residents. As Yannis Angles reports from Échirolles, the town council is also taking its own initiatives, including moving people out of a building that is notorious as a hotspot for the illicit trade.
Doliprane, a brand name for paracetomol, is France's most popular medicine and has become part of the social fabric of the country. So when it was revealed recently that French pharmaceutical company Sanofi plans to sell the subsidiary that makes the medicine to a private equity firm from the United States, there was public outcry. Yet despite earlier pledges over the need for health and medicine security - and about the need to reindustrialise the country - the Élysée has supported the move on the grounds that it shows that France is an attractive place for investors. Martine Orange reports.
France's new government under prime minister Michel Barnier last week announced details of its proposed budget, which aims to make up to 60 billion euros in savings. Part of the plan involves cutting jobs in education. Here in this op-ed article, Mediapart's education correspondent Mathilde Goanec wonders how the government will try to persuade the public to accept the decision to axe another 4,000 teaching posts, especially after it promised to place education at the heart of its concerns. She says ministers will resort to a lot of clever PR and rely on the now well-worn line that fewer teachers are needed because of declining demographics. Even though this argument does not stand up to scrutiny.
Novelist Juliette Rousseau's latest work 'Péquenaude' is a book that is hard to categorise. It is a poetic and political narrative, rooted in a countryside that has been disfigured by agribusiness. As Amélie Poinssot notes, the author - who has returned to her native Brittany in western France after many years living in Paris – has written a work based around a rural world that is loved and damaged in equal measure.
France's president Emmanuel Macron recently called for an embargo on the sale of any weapons to Israel that could be used in Gaza. His statement, aimed at the international community, has drawn criticism from within his own political camp, angered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and led to him being booed during a tribute in Paris to the victims of October 7th. Politicians on the Left, meanwhile, have welcomed his words but are now expecting action. Justine Brabant and lyes Ramdani report.
Vidadi Isgandarli, a fierce critic of the regime in Baku and a refugee in France since 2017, was stabbed fifteen times at his home in Mulhouse last month and died of his injuries two days later. Despite this attack bearing the possible hallmarks of what might have been a political assassination on French soil ordered by a foreign power, the authorities in Paris have remained mysteriously quiet. However, as Justine Brabant reports, the French government will have to take a stance on the killing of the exiled blogger before next month's COP29 climate conference – which is being hosted by Azerbaijan.
