A preliminary investigation into rape and sexual assault allegations concerning the actor and director, who is perhaps best known for directing the 2019 film 'La Belle Époque', was opened on July 5th by Paris prosecutors. When approached, Nicolas Bedos, who benefits from a presumption of innocence, declined to comment. Four women have spoken to Mediapart about the film director. Marine Turchi reports.
French journalist Alain Gresh is a veteran specialist in Middle East affairs, and notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A former editor of the monthly review Le Monde diplomatique, Gresh is now editor-in-chief of Orient XXI, an online magazine focussing on the Arab world. In an updated book re-published this month, amid the horrific events in Israel and Gaza, he recounts the history of France’s strategy towards the Israel-Palestine conflict over the past 50 years. In this interview with Mediapart, he analyses the decline of France’s diplomatic status in the Middle East, its realignment with the US approach to the region after decades as an independent broker, and warns of a now widening gulf between France and the Arab world.
After considerable delays, French president Emmanuel Macron and his prime minister Élisabeth Borne, newly re-confirmed in her role, have carried out a government reshuffle. The main theme is the removal of ministers from a civic society background, who were considered too low-profile. They have instead been replaced by more political appointments in the form of Macron loyalists and Parliamentarians. The prime minister and her team hope this will make the government function more effectively. As for any new political impetus, that will have to wait. Political correspondent Ilyes Ramdani reports.
Many French media outlets continue to harbour clichéd views of life in working class areas and this in turn leads to bias in how events in the country's suburbs – often places of high immigration and poverty - are covered. Many newsroom journalists are unhappy at the persistence of such views, but say they choose to keep silent for fear of being mocked or being accused of a lack of neutrality. Yunnes Abzouz investigates.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict presents a moral issue of universal importance, that of the equality of rights, says Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. In parallel to Israel’s international legitimacy is a denial of the rights of Palestinians. Alarmed spectators, we discover the horror of the Hamas terrorist attack and the killing of Israeli civilians, and follow the slaughter, under the bombs of the Israeli military, of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. All these human lives have the same value, the same cost, he writes, and we cannot accept this escalade of terror in which the crimes of one camp supposedly justify the crimes of another.
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.
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.
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.
One of France’s oldest existing French press titles, the satirical and investigative weekly Le Canard enchaîné built a reputation as a fearless, irreverent and anti-establishment journal which has recurrently shaken the country’s political class. But it has now turned to the government to validate the disputed dismissal of one of its investigative journalists, following his revelations of a scandal within the weekly itself. Fabrice Arfi, Yunnes Abzouz and Karl Laske report.
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.
