The French government on Wednesday announced the establishment of a state of emergency in the Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia, where four people, including a gendarme, have died and many others were injured after two nights of rioting. The troubles were prompted by anger at new legislation to change the electoral register which will have the effect of diminishing the political representation of the archipelago’s indigenous Kanak people. “We’ve entered a deadly spiral," said France's high commissioner for the territory, Louis Le Franc. Gilles Caprais reports from the New Caledonian capital Nouméa, after the second night of violence.
In a number public hospitals around France, the staff rooms of junior doctors – where they take meals and hold parties – are painted with sexist and pornographic frescos. While often these are scenes of orgies involving caricatures of consultants and junior doctors, at least one depicted the rape of a health minister. Last year the health authorities ordered hospitals to remove the frescos, but as Mediapart reports here, many have not done so because of opposition, not least from elder doctors, against a “cancel culture”. Meanwhile, feminist activists say the hospital murals are perpetuating a “an apologia of the culture of rape”. Prisca Borrel and Caroline Coq-Chodorge report.
By the mid-1960s, around 75,000 immigrant workers and their families, who arrived in France as cheap labour during the post-war economic boom that began in the 1950s, lived in appalling conditions in shantytowns close to towns and cities, and notably Paris. The camps were only finally demolished in the mid-1970s, but their legacy lives on. French sociologist Margot Delon recently published a study in which she interviewed those who grew up in the shantytowns, and which offers an insight into the grim reality of a world from which thousands sought, and some succeeded, to escape. This review by Faïza Zerouala.
The organisation tasked with combating sexism in French society, the Haut Conseil à l’Égalité entre les Femmes et les Hommes (HCE), is itself in the middle of a crisis, according to internal documents and testimonies from staff and former staff obtained by Mediapart. Its president Sylvie Pierre-Brossolette, whose comments on a variety of topics have outraged employees at the HCE, said she had no intention of “explaining” herself to Mediapart. Sarah Brethes reports.
In March and April health and safety inspectors stopped work at three high-profile Olympic sites because of safety concerns. The officials decided that parts of the sites, at Versailles, the Place de la Concorde in Paris and the Eiffel Tower, were too dangerous for workers. Work has since resumed and the organisers say the work interruptions have not affected their scheduled timetable for the Games which start in July. But as Dan Israel reports, health and safety officials are now keeping a close eye on the company involved, GL Events, whose boss was one of the first backers of Emmanuel Macron's bid to become president.
The president of the radical-left La France Insoumise group in the National Assembly, Mathilde Panot, has spoken out for the first time after she was questioned by detectives earlier this week over accusations of being an “apologist” for terrorism. The police summons and questioning related to a press statement that the MP issued on behalf of her party in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th. Warning about the emergence of a new “thought police” and the country's slide towards “authoritarianism”, Mathilde Panot has called on everyone, especially others on the Left, to grasp the full significance of this episode. Pauline Graulle spoke to her.
Some in the French president's entourage are urging him to formally recognise Palestine as a state. As for Emmanuel Macron himself, he continues to consult and reflect on the issue, insisting that he is looking for the right moment for France to take this symbolic step. As Ilyes Ramdani and Rachida El Azzouzi report, his stance is similar to that adopted by President François Hollande ten years ago.
As a result of confidentiality clauses imposed by Google, Mediapart will not accept the money owed to it over the use of its intellectual property in search engine results; what are known as “neighbouring rights”. It comes down to an issue of trust with our readership, explains Mediapart's publishing editor Carine Fouteau, who argues that a united front by the press publishing sector is more necessary than ever in the face of Big Tech's lack of transparency.
Paris-based minerals multinational Imerys wants to open a lithium mine near the village of Échassières in the centre of France where they have been holding consultations with local residents. If it goes ahead the mine would produce enough lithium for 663,000 electric car batteries each year. But as Nicolas Cheviron reports, people in the area are worried about the environmental impact of this major scheme as the debate continues over the best way to carry out energy transition.
In recent days, a false video purporting to be from news channel BFMTV has stoked paranoia about the prevalence of bedbugs in France. This is just one more item of pro-Russian propaganda among countless other examples of fake news that have been circulating lately. Justine Brabant and Matthieu Suc investigate the hidden workings of France's daily fight against Moscow's online influence.
