“From Paris, I watch the European continent congratulate itself for finally recognizing Palestine, even as it bankrolls the projects of walls, buffer zones, and ‘migration management’ systems that make it easier to empty Gaza of its people and harder than ever for us to go home,” writes Gazan journalist Nour Elassy, now studying in France, in the latest of her regular contributions to Mediapart, which she began earlier this year, from within Gaza, chronicling the horrors of the unfolding war.
Before he joined the San Antonio Spurs in the US, the French basketball prodigy Victor Wembanyama, now an MBA superstar, played for one year with Metropolitans 92, based in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. The club was owned by the town hall, and the local mayor did his utmost to sign Wembanyama, including seeking funding from private companies in deals that are now at the centre of a prosecutors’ probe into suspected corruption.
Men with the lowest standard of living in France have an average life expectancy of 72 years, compared with 85 years for those in the wealthiest category, while women in the lowest income group have an average life expectancy of 80.1 years, compared with 88.7 years for the most wealthy. Those stark differences are detailed in a study published this week by France’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, which found not only that the gap between the poor and the rich has widened over the past eight years, but that life expectancy for the poorest 25% of the population has declined over the same period. Romaric Godin analyses the findings.
While investigations continue into the Bondi Beach shootings in Australia last Sunday, in which 15 people attending a Jewish religious celebration were killed, the massacre increasingly appears linked to the so-called Islamic State group. In France, as elsewhere, many among the Jewish population have voiced fears over increasing threats of anti-Semitic attacks, notably since the war in Gaza. As Matthieu Suc details here, those threats come from a variety of sources, including not only jihadists but also state agencies employing proxies to hide their involvement in terrorism and intimidation.
An epidemic of a bovine disease first discovered in France in June continues to advance in the country, while the authorities attempt to contain it with the mass culling of herds where Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) has been discovered. The slaughter of around 3,000 bovines since the early summer has incensed many farmers who see it as an unnecessarily drastic measure, prompting increasingly militant protests which now threaten to snowball into broader action nationwide. For, as Emmanuel Riondé reports from south-west France, where two more herds were culled on Friday and Saturday, the LSD crisis is just the latest grievance to be added to the tinderbox of a deep and longstanding malaise among France’s farming population.
A backstage video has revealed France's First Lady, Brigitte Macron, describing feminist campaigners who disrupted a stand-up show as “stupid bitches”. They had been protesting against comedian and actor Ary Abittan, who had faced an allegation of rape before it was dropped by prosecutors in 2024. With the row growing over Brigitte Macron's comments, the Élysée was obliged to acknowledge what she had said. As Mediapart reports, critics say her words show utter disdain for the battle against sexual violence.
This Tuesday French MPs are taking part in a vote on a crucial part of the 2026 budget. One measure that has already been ruled out is a major increase in inheritance tax. Yet as Mediapart here reports, workplace earnings alone are no longer enough for a person wanting to better their lot in society. Instead, it is parental wealth that determines a child's future prosperity in France. With so much bequeathed wealth currently escaping taxation, some argue that the rich should pay more inheritance tax. That, say these critics, would help restore a degree of fairness to the system.
The French state signed more than 250 orders authorising the widespread use of surveillance drones to monitor the many demonstrations that took place around the country during the autumn. These decrees are now the target of around a hundred legal challenges. The complaints, lodged with administrative courts, have been filed by a collective of organisations who are seeking to develop a long-term legal argument to halt the systematic and disproportionate use of drone surveillance at social protests.
An appeal court in Algeria has just upheld a seven-year prison sentence that had been given to French journalist Christophe Gleizes. The sports reporter had been convicted of, among other offences, “glorifying terrorism” over an interview with a sports official who has links to a banned separatist movement. In this op-ed article Mediapart's publishing editor says the verdict flies in the face of fundamental universal principles that enshrine the right to know.
French intelligence services have obtained evidence that Russia's presidential office approved a plan to target both the Jewish and Muslim communities in this country. The aim of these “active measures” operations is to sow division and discord within the heart of French society.
