After it was taken over by Dutch group Plukon in 2017, French poultry giant Duc began a massive development of its industrial production of chickens. This involved halting its production of organic and certified chickens, a major extension of its slaughterhouse at its HQ in northern Burgundy, and the future construction of 80 giant broiler houses in the neighbouring countryside. The expansion, which mirrors industrial poultry production practices elsewhere in France and Europe, has raised concerns locally over its environmental impact, and in a number of villages opponents speak of a climate of intimidation. Amélie Poinssot reports.
The outcome of France's legislative elections on Sunday shows the extent to which the country's political map has been redrawn in recent years. There are now three main blocs and groups of voters; Emmanuel Macron's centre-right, the Left and the far-right. But the composition of the new National Assembly, in which Macron's coalition has the single largest bloc of MPs but lacks an overall majority, raises as many questions as answers about the political future. Fabien Escalona assesses the uncertainties that lie ahead.
For the Ukrainian community in France the news of Russia's invasion of their country sparked fears for families back home and concern over the spectre of a European war, while also prompting a desire to show solidarity. Four young Ukrainian and Russian woman from Toulouse, a city in south-west France which is twinned with Kyiv, told Mediapart of their reaction to the dramatic and tragic events of Thursday February 24th. Emmanuel Riondé reports.
According to a study by environmental campaign group Greenpeace and Oxfam France, France's 63 billionaires alone have a carbon footprint that is equivalent to that of half the French population. This enormous disparity between the climatic impact of the mega-rich and ordinary households shows that it is impossible to have ecological transition in society without also having social justice, reports Mickaël Correia.
Aloys Ntiwiragabo, the former head of Rwanda’s military intelligence under the country’s extremist Hutu regime, accused of being a ringleader in the 1994 genocide that is estimated to have exterminated up to one million mostly Tutsi people in the African state, continues to reside in France despite a request by Rwanda for his extradition and the rejection of his asylum application. The case of Ntiwiragabo, suspected of “crimes against humanity”, is a further demonstration of the unofficial haven that perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have found in France. Theo Englebert reports.
Valérie Pécresse, the presidential election candidate for the conservative Les Républicains party, on Sunday held what was billed as a key speech to re-boot her struggling campaign, dogged by defections, infighting, and the pull exerted on her electorate by the two far-right candidates with whom she lies neck-and-neck in opinion polls. Her speech, however, has only added to her woes, after it was slammed on Monday by party officials for borrowing far-right rhetoric, and dismissed by media commentators as a lacklustre performance. Ilyes Ramdani, who was at the meeting, reports.
French police phone taps of billionaire businessman Vincent Bolloré during a judicial investigation into suspected corrupt practises in West Africa by his family-owned industrial group, now a media and publishing empire, show how, with the help of influential PR advisor Ramzi Khiroun, he was secretly informed of the contents of an unflattering profile of him by public broadcaster France 2. They also unveil how, as the corruption probe closed in, he received crisis management advice from former French president and friend Nicolas Sarkozy. The taps are among a series of revelations in ‘Media Crash’, a documentary co-produced by Mediapart exposing the inside story of the manipulation of the French press and broadcast media by a handful of self-serving, wealthy proprietors, to be released in theatres around France, beginning on February 16th. Yann Philippin and Valentine Oberti report.
On Monday January 31st the military-civilian junta running Mali told France's ambassador to leave the country in a further escalation of the tension that has developed between the two nations in recent months. As Rémi Carayol observes, the next stage in the bitter war of words could be an announcement from Paris that France's military forces in the African country will be withdrawn.
In the second of two articles based on interrogations by United States intelligence officials, Mediapart tells the story of the four notorious British jihadists who were to become known as 'The Beatles'. As Matthieu Suc reports, they were the first terrorists to represent to the wider world the true threat posed by Islamic State.
Two British jihadists currently in custody in the United States, who were part of a group of four Britons dubbed 'The Beatles', have told their American interrogators the identity of the Islamic State leaders who masterminded the capture and then release of French hostages in 2014 in exchange for ransoms. As Mediapart can reveal, these senior IS leaders were the same people who ordered the murderous attacks in Paris on November 13th 2015. Matthieu Suc reports.
