In his latest book 'Un taylorisme augmenté' ('Enhanced Taylorism') the France-based sociologist Juan Sebastián Carbonell offers a fresh perspective on the likely impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market. Rather than seeing it as a boost for productivity on the one hand or as a destroyer of jobs on the other, the academic instead describes artificial intelligence as a capitalist tool for tighter control over already downgraded work. And he calls for a social struggle centred squarely on the issue of technology and its role in the workplace. Romaric Godin reviews the academic's book.

Prime minister François Bayrou has approved the renovation of his office in Pau, the small city in south-west France where he is also still the serving mayor. The aim of the work is to “restore the original splendour” of that office, and the bill - to be paid from public funds - comes in at 40,000 euros, according to Mediapart's information. Such a move is politically explosive in the middle of a national austerity plan being pushed by the prime minister himself and against the backdrop of a city council whose public debt has soared since it came under Bayrou's control. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.

Earlier this month a screening of the hit film 'Barbie' in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec was cancelled after local protests. Yet the move to stop this film being shown was just the latest episode in a long list of cancel-culture attacks on the freedom to stage artistic performances across France. Many of these interventions have come from fundamentalist Catholic and nationalist groups, with some also emanating from the Left. Faced with such threats, some local elected representatives have felt obliged to yield to the pressure and cancel events. Laura Wojcik reports.

There are plans to stage a major nationwide protest and 'block everything' in France on September 10th. Having begun on social media, this movement is a reaction against the austerity measures proposed in prime minister François Bayrou's 2026 budget. Last Tuesday evening Mediapart was present when at least 200 people gathered in the southern city of Montpellier to prepare for the September event. Those at the meeting included veterans from the nationwide 'Gilets jaunes' or 'Yellow Vests' protests of 2018 and 2019, trade unionists, students and pro-Palestine activists. They called for their various struggles to come together and for people to get out and protest, despite the likely fall of the current government in a vote of no confidence scheduled for September 8th. Cécile Hautefeuille reports.

Following the surprise announcement by French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Monday (photo) that he will submit his government to a confidence vote in France’s hung parliament on September 8th, which several opposition parties have announced they will reject, his fate now appears sealed after less than nine months in office. As Pauline Graulle reports, the parties of the Left and Right are now preparing for the post-Bayrou period, with the looming possibility of new snap parliamentary elections amid the deepening political chaos.

A state of famine in the Gaza Strip was officially declared on Friday by a UN-affiliated body of experts, the IPC, that evaluate food insecurity around the world. The famine is declared in the Gaza Governorate, which includes Gaza City with a population of one million and which now faces a large-scale Israeli military offensive. Mediapart’s Gwenaëlle Lenoir interviewed Jérôme Grimaud, the emergency aid coordinator in Gaza for the French NGO Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), who told her of the horrific consequences of the famine, notably on hospital patients.

There has been outcry in France after Raphaël Graven, aka “Jean Pormanove”, or simply “JP”, died on Monday in front of the cameras of an online streaming channel whose viewers paid to watch him being subjected for 12 days to cruel physical and psychological abuse. After an autopsy found no external or internal injury to explain his death, toxicological tests have been ordered. Questions remain over the precise circumstances of his death, and others over the antics of his fellow streamers, the failure of relevant authorities to intervene beforehand, the laisser-faire attitude of the Australian platform Kick which hosted the channel, and why viewers watch the disturbing content.

The heatwave that hung over much of France since early August, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in parts of the country, finally lifted this week. In parallel, and less talked about, a marine heatwave was in progress in the Mediterranean Sea, with water temperatures off the French coast reaching close to 30°C. It was the last of many recorded over recent years in the waters of the Mediterranean which, over the first half of 2025, reached their warmest-ever on record. The acceleration of the sea’s heatwaves is alarming scientists, and leave behind decimated ecosystems. Mickaël Correia reports.    

France’s south-east region of Provence is famed for its production of lavender and hybrid lavender, called lavandin, a symbol of the summer when the blue and mauve flowers of the plants explode in colour and heady fragrance. But many of the century-old plantations are facing an increasing double threat to their existence, from over-production and climate change. Pierre Isnard-Dupuy reports on the crisis from France’s Valensole plateau, traditionally a major centre of the country's lavender trade, where some are turning to alternative, and notably organic, methods for growing the coveted aromatic plant.

Israel has claimed responsibility for the assassinations in Gaza on August 10th of a group of Gazan journalists working for the TV channel Al Jazeera, and alleged that one of them, reporter Anas al-Sharif, was "the head of a Hamas terrorist cell". The Israeli military have carried out an unprecedented number of executions of Palestinian journalists, writes Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. He argues that the slaughter of local reporters in Gaza, to where no international media can gain access, is in order to eliminate the evidence of the crimes being committed there.