Cécilia Attias, the former wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, was interviewed in June as a witness by police acting under the authority of a judicial investigation into the suspected illegal funding of her then husband’s 2007 presidential election campaign by the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. During the four-hours of questioning, she was notably unflattering about several of the former president’s close entourage, and described evidence from the probe that was presented to her as, variously, “staggering”, “surreal” and “ugly”. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Bashir Saleh, the former chief of staff to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has given a statement to the public prosecution services of Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Unity saying that he was informed how Nicolas Sarkozy directly asked Gaddafi for “help” with his 2007 presidential election campaign. The prosecutors have also obtained a detailed statement from Gaddafi’s personal secretary, Ahmed Ramadan, on precisely how the regime allegedly financed Sarkozy’s bid. In this second part of a series of three reports, Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report on the latest developments in the French judicial investigation into the suspected illegal funding.
Earlier this month judges in Paris dismissed a legal case brought by residents from the French Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe over the widespread use of the pesticide chlordecone which has polluted local ecosystems. The Green mayor of Pointe-à-Pitrre in Guadeloupe, Harry Durimel, who is also a lawyer acting for victims of the pesticide, has announced his intention to appeal. In an interview with Mediapart's Mickaël Correia, he talks about the harmful impact of the court ruling – including on how France's overseas citizens will now view the French state.
Prosecutors have begun a criminal investigation after Mediapart revealed claims that the mayor of Saint-Étienne in south-east France, Gaël Perdriau, blackmailed his deputy mayor Gilles Artigues using a videotape of the latter with a male escort in an hotel room. The apparent aim of the blackmail was to ensure that Perdriau, who is from the right-wing Les Républicains (LR), maintained political control over his deputy Gilles Artigues, a devout Catholic and former Member of Parliament from the centre-right UDI party. After the initial revelations Mediapart then published extracts from recordings which revealed both Gaël Perdriau and his chief of staff threatening the deputy mayor over the sex tape. Both men, along with three others, have now been questioned in custody by detectives. Antton Rouget reports on an affair that has provoked widespread condemnation across the political spectrum.
French judges are leading an investigation into claims of corruption surrounding the 7.8-billion-euro sale to India in 2016 of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter aircraft. But four months after searching the headquarters of the French defence and aviation group, investigators were refused access by France's Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to classified documents concerning the contract negotiations. Yann Philippin reports.
Between June and August 2022 France saw “excess deaths that were in all probability due in part to the heatwave”. That is the verdict of the country's official statistics agency INSEE. If one compares the 2022 mortality figures with the same period in 2019, an additional 11,124 people lost their lives this summer. These initial estimates of the impact of this year's heat inevitably revive memories of the tragic heatwave of 2003, which led to the deaths of many thousands of people. Donatien Huet and Jade Lindgaard report.
Le Monde newspaper recently depublished an opinion article about Algeria that had attracted the ire of President Emmanuel Macron. As Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux says in this analysis piece, this was not a one-off example of the Élysée confusing journalism with public relations. As he explains, a number of academics, politicians and journalists are concerned about the way the presidency appears to be systematically equating the two.
With next June's Turkish presidential election fast approaching, the issue of Syrian refugees in the country has become a major topic for political parties. Politicians' speeches on the subject, repeated at every opportunity, are contributing to the growing wave of racism shown by many Turkish citizens towards immigrants in general - and Syrians in particular. Mediapart correspondent Hussam Hammoud reports from Gaziantep in southern Turkey on the plight of his fellow Syrians in the country.
On July 14th 2016, in the French Riviera city of Nice, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel ran a heavy truck into and over crowds celebrating Bastille Day, taking the lives of 86 people and injuring hundreds of others, before he was shot dead by police. The 31-year-old Tunisian had a history of mental problems and violence, raising the question of whether his act was solely that of a deranged individual. As the trial begins in Paris of eight people accused of helping him prepare the attack, Matthieu Suc details how the judicial investigation established beyond doubt that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's hideous crime was that of a terrorist, long drawn to jihadism.
The French national football team, les Bleus, lost to Argentina in the World Cup final in Qatar on Sunday, in a thrilling game that ended in breathless manner. But while the young squad may have the blues at losing their bid for world football's ultimate crown, the new "Mbappé generation" have already surpassed their elders in the matter of popping the apolitical bubble surrounding French football, and in challenging its conservative governing federation. Ilyes Ramdani reports.
