Most of the infants died of illness during an unusally hard winter between November 1962 and March 1963. These previously unpublished photos are from the personal collection of the military camp’s then residant doctor, Paul Brugière. © Collection personnelle du docteur Paul Brugière, médecin dans le camp de Saint-Maurice

Earlier this year the lost remains of 27 infants were finally discovered in shallow graves close to a former French military camp used 60 years ago to intern Harkis, the Algerian auxiliaries who fought alongside France’s army in the Algerian war of Independence, and their families. The infants, whose parents were reluctantly admitted to France in 1962, were among 31 recorded to have died amid the harsh conditions at the isolated camp in southern France. But despite announcements of a future memorial cemetery for the children, their families are increasingly angry at the delays for a search to begin for the other missing remains, and call for the opening of an investigation into the many mysteries surrounding the events. Prisca Borrel reports.

Mobile Gerontological Team nurse Olivia Westbrook-Fournier with patient Marie Tibaudo in Bourges, central France, in May 2023. © Photo Rozenn Le Saint pour Mediapart

The Cher département (county) in central France has one of the lowest ratios of health professionals per capita of any, and some of the worst-affected among the population are the elderly. In face of the problem, the local regional heath agency set up a Mobile Gerontological Team, which visits elderly patients at home to monitor their physical condition and notably to review their medicine prescriptions, which are often over-abundant, misguided, and even dangerous. The project, unique in France, has proved to be highly successful, with patients, weaned off an overconsumption of pills, retrieving a degree of lost independence. Rozenn Le Saint reports.

Pages from the BNP Paribas guide to staff on how to respond to criticism of its financing of fossil fuel extraction. © Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP

French bank BNP Paribas is increasingly under fire from climate activists over its financing of oil and gas companies. In face of the high-profile campaigns, it has issued an advice manual for its staff on how to respond to criticism of its activities at the “family meal” table, such as explaining to a “cousin worried about climate-warming” that the bank in fact supports ending mass fossil fuel extraction. Mediapart has obtained a copy of the guide, which adopts a light-hearted culinary theme, beginning with a chapter entitled ‘appetizer’. But, as Mickaël Correia reports, its questionable claims are so brazen that some might lose their appetite. 

Clockwise from left: Narendra Modi and Emmanuel Macron, the Rafale fighter jet, and Reliance Group owner Anil Ambani. © Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

France’s 7.8-billion-euro sale to India in 2016 of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter jets, the subject of an ongoing French judicial investigation, is mired by suspected corruption involving politicians and industrialists. As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who signed the deal, prepares to attend France’s Bastille Day celebrations as guest of honour, documents obtained by Mediapart reveal how Modi’s billionaire friend, Anil Ambani, boss of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Group, which was handed a lucrative contract as a condition of the Rafale sale, directly solicited the intervention of then economy minister Emmanuel Macron and finance minister Michel Sapin in a bid to escape a 151-million-euro tax claim against his French subsidiary. The tax adjustment was finally cut down to 6.6 million euros. Yann Philippin reports.

Andrey Zubitskiy and Dmitry Peskov. © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

Mediapart can reveal that close family members of Russians sanctioned after the invasion of Ukraine are continuing to use their luxury properties in France, which have escaped from being frozen by the French Treasury as assets. Among those benefiting include family members of Vladimir Putin's veteran spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and several oligarchs. The revelations emerge from a joint investigation carried out with the German NGO Civil Forum for Asset Recovery (CIFAR) and media network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). Sébastien Bourdon, Yann Philippin and Alexandre Brutelle (CIFAR) report. 

The small La Penzé river, a bathing and fishing spot, was polluted by up to 300,000 litres of porcine sewage. © Splann !

A court in Brittany has handed a 200,000-euro fine, half of which is suspended, to a company that manages the largest pig farm in France after it polluted a nearby river with up to 300,000 litres of porcine excrement and urine. On top of what is a record fine for such a case in France, the company, Kerjean, was also banned from receiving any public aid for one year, while an expert is to be mandated to establish the environmental prejudice caused. Kristen Falc’hon reports.

Yazid Kherzi, a specialist in crime prevention. © Célia Mebroukine / Mediapart

In the town of Mantes-la-Jolie, north-west of Paris, public buildings and shops have been burnt or burgled in the unrest that has followed the death last week of 17-year-old Nahel at Nanterre. Mediapart visited the worst-affected neighbourhood there, the vast high-rise housing estate of Le Val Fourré, and found that local residents both condemned and understood the actions of local youths. For all of them have their own stories about a lack of civility and of violence by the police over recent decades, often based on close personal experience. Caroline Coq-Chodorge and Célia Mebroukine report from the town.

Residents of Boulevard de la Boissière in front of the looted supermarket, June 20th 2023. © Mathilde Goanec

The unrest that has broken out after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Nahel by a police officer is affecting many towns and cities across France. Mediapart visited the town of Montreuil in the eastern suburbs of Paris to speak to local people about the impact of those violent disturbances. Dozens of shops and businesses have been looted there, especially in the town centre. The events have drawn mixed reactions from local residents in a left-leaning town known for its multicultural mix. Mathilde Goanec reports.

Emmanuel Macron and interior minister Gérald Darmanin during a public meeting in the La Busserine district of Marseille, June 26th 2023. © Photo Ludovic Marin / Pool / AFP

The angry reaction in many disadvantaged districts of France after the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel has once again put police violence back on the political agenda. Lacking any viable response to the unrest, however, the government is simply switching between showing compassion for the teenager and his family, and displaying toughness in the face of disorder. Ilyes Ramdani examines the French government's reaction to the shooting and its aftermath.

Emmanuel Macron and his predecessor as president, François Hollande, at the Élysée, February 25th 2022. © Photo Carine Schmitt / Hans Lucas via AFP

The killing of 17-year-old Nahel by an armed police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre has made headlines in France and across the world. It has provoked angry reactions in the streets and from a number of politicians. But as Ellen Salvi writes in this op-ed article, the youngster's death has also been the subject of some shameful comments, of falsehoods, efforts at justification and attempts to play it down. She argues that for the last 20 years successive governments and a rampant far right have denied a stark reality: that of a society that is sinking as it forgets its fundamental principles and the values that stem from them.

© Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP

Last Monday the court of appeal in Paris heard evidence about how much compensation the state should pay Foued, who was wrongly convicted as a teenager of having taken part in a 2016 attack on police officers at Viry-Châtillon in the southern suburbs of the capital. During the hearing Foued set out in grim detail the impact that spending four-and-a-half-years behind bars for a crime he did not commit has had both on his life and those around him. But as Pascale Pascariello reports, his distress did not appear to elicit much sympathy in court.

Members of the FNSEA farming union dump manure in front of the regional environment ministry building at Lyon, February 21st 2023. © Photo Jeff Pachoud / AFP

Last week the French government dissolved the environmental protest group Les Soulèvements de la Terre (SLT), which had been prominent in demonstrations against the construction of large irrigation reservoirs in the west of the country. The main farming union, the FNSEA, had been one of the loudest voices calling for this environmental group to be shut down. Now the same powerful farmers' lobby group is pointing the finger at a rival farming union, the Confédération Paysanne, which it says has taken part in SLT protests. Karl Laske looks at the role of the FNSEA and its own history of disruptive actions.

Emmanuel Macron, and protestors against plans for a Lyon-Turin railway line. © Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP

Having imposed his pension reform against the French people's wishes, France's president is now in the throes of an authoritarian dash to pursue policies that favour owners of capital. As a result, argues Romaric Godin in this op-ed article, from now on what the president wants is what the country gets – whether it likes it or not.

Philosopher Michaël Lowy, politicians Clémentine Autain and Paul Magnette, and green activist Claire Lejeune. © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

From social democrats to the radical Left, leftwing parties in France are embracing or at least debating the concept of ecosocialism. As Mediapart's Mathieu Dejean writes, this collective appropriation of a radical idea that stems from the 1970s marks a new phase in the reconstruction of the French Left as it seeks to find a common view of the world.

A child among women in the notorious detention camp of Al-Hol, in north-east Syria, run by the Syrian Democratic Forces, August 26th 2022. © Photo Delil Souleiman / AFP

The French government has introduced a controversial national database for monitoring the evolution of children born to jihadist parents and who have been returned to France from camps in Syria. The system, officially described as ensuring the “protection” of the minors and to prevent them “engaging in a process of delinquency or radicalisation”, contains very sensitive personal information about the children, and can be accessed by a wide range of administrations. It has come in for sharp criticism from rights campaigners, and faces a legal challenge before the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, while Mediapart has learnt that the public prosecution services’ anti-terrorist branch has declined to participate in it. David Perrotin and Matthieu Suc report.