The seizure of power by Captain Ibrahim Traoré in Burkina Faso on September 30th brings to five the number of successful coups d’état that have taken place in West Africa in the last two years. One of the main reasons for these coups has been the failure of the fight against terrorism in the Sahel region, which has led to growing insecurity. Another factor is the increasing role of Russia there. Justine Brabant reports.

The news that French author Annie Ernaux – who has written a string of acclaimed books - has been awarded the Nobel prize for literature is a cause for celebration, writes Mediapart journalist and literature lecturer Lise Wajeman. But how should one interpret the bestowal of this prestigious prize to the French writer, given that she herself once declared: “What I also want to destroy is literature”?

In what is the first legal move of its kind in France, oil and gas and giant TotalEnergies, the former Total, is the subject of an investigation by French public prosecutors which was opened after three NGOs filed a complaint accusing the group of “misleading commercial practices”. The complaint centres on the multinational’s claims over its credentials in policies for environmental protection and the limiting of global warming, including being a “major player” in energy transition, which the NGOs say amounts to deliberately deceptive “greenwashing”. Mickaël Correia reports.

The Turkish-based Syrian journalist and Mediapart contributor Hussam Hammoud was refused a visa by the French authorities on September 5th. A month later, on Wednesday October 5th, his legal team appeared at the administrative court in Nantes to appeal against this decision. The journalist's lawyers highlighted the vague approximations and errors in the arguments used by France's Ministry of the Interior to refuse him the humanitarian visa and called for the application to be looked at again. François Bougon reports.

The French judicial investigation into the suspected illegal financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has found new evidence pointing to the organisation of the alleged funding on computer files belonging to Thierry Gaubert, a close friend and political ally of the former French president. In this second of a two-part report on the discovery, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske detail more about the findings and their implications.

On September 23rd the president's chief of staff was placed under formal investigation for  the “unlawful acquisition  of an interest” over claims he hid his family ties to the MSC shipping line and intervened in its favour on several occasions  while working as a senior civil servant. Alexis Kohler has also been placed under the status of “assisted witness” for “influence peddling” in relation to the same case. As Martine Orange reports, the news comes after the Élysée spent five years trying – in vain - to bury the case.

For the first time in French political and legal history, a serving justice minister has been sent for trial before the Cour de Justice de la République. Éric Dupond-Moretti will appear before the CJR – the special court that deals with the alleged offences of ministers while in office – accused of an unlawful conflict of interest. He is said to have put pressure on anti-corruption prosecutors and a judge. However, argues Fabrice Arfi in this op-ed article, President Emmanuel Macron must also accept a major share of the responsibility for the affair. It was the head of state who appointed the former high-profile and outspoken lawyer to the post - and who then chose to keep him in office after the allegations first broke.

In what appears to be a significant development in the French judicial investigation into the suspected illegal financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the probe has discovered evidence pointing to the involvement in the alleged funding of Thierry Gaubert, a longstanding friend and political ally of the former French president. This centres on the contents of a computer hard disk belonging to Gaubert, seized in 2011 in a separate case concerning him, and which have only now come to light. In this first of a two-part report, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske detail the findings and their implications for Sarkozy.

An extraordinary national awakening to the extent of child sex abuse and its traumatic consequences followed the publication in France last year of a book, La Familia grande, exposing the recurrent sexual abuse of the author’s twin brother by their stepfather. Its publication prompted an outpouring of posts on social media by victims of similar abuse, and the creation, at the behest of President Emmanuel Macron, of an advisory “independent commission on incest and sexual violence towards children”. The commission has now published a preliminary report following its national appeal for victims to come forward to detail their experiences, to which more than 16,000 people have so far responded. Sarah Brethes reports.

At the request of Emmanuel Macron, Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Tokyo to represent France at the state funeral on Tuesday of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. That was despite the fact that the former French president has two convictions, and notably one for corruption, and that he is currently placed under investigation for “criminal conspiracy”, “corruption”, “illicit campaign financing” and “receiving the proceeds of the misappropriation of public funds” in relation to the alleged Libyan funding of his 2007 election campaign. Fabrice Arfi and Ilyes Ramdani report.