The trial in Paris of 14 people accused of complicity in the separate January 2015 terrorist attacks in the French capital against Charlie Hebdo magazine, a kosher store, and a policewoman, which left 17 victims dead, opened on Wednesday. Absent from the hearings are three defendants whose fate or eventual whereabouts is unknown. In this second of a two-part report, Matthieu Suc details the story of how the three got away, and the evidence that at least one of them is alive and hiding from justice in the Middle East.
Mayada Boulos, communications advisor to French Prime Minister Jean Castex, was in charge of a PR campaign to promote Saudi Arabian interests during her previous job with advertising and public relations group Havas. The campaign was on behalf of a foundation created and chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the kingdom who a US intelligence report released last week said had approved the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Antton Rouget reports.
Rui Pinto, the whistleblower behind the Football Leaks revelations of corruption and fraud that have rocked the world of professional football, is to stand trial in Portugal on September 4th. The 31-year-old faces 90 charges which carry up to 25 years in prison. But after reaching a cooperation agreement with Portuguese authorities, he is now in a witness protection scheme. Der Spiegel magazine, Mediapart’s partner in the European Investigative Collaborations network which jointly published the Football Leaks investigations, has met with Pinto ahead of his trial.
The Rwandan authorities have issued an international warrant for the arrest and extradition of Aloys Ntiwiragabo, a former head of the country’s military intelligence who is accused of playing a key role in the 1994 genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered, after an investigation by Mediapart revealed that he had settled with his wife in the French town of Orléans.
In an interview with Mediapart, the French rapper Médine explained why he is suing Member of Parliament Aurore Bergé of the ruling La République en Marche party for defamation after she described him as an “Islamist rapper” and accused him of “incitement to murder”. He told Mediapart: “She's ascribing an ideology to me which obviously isn't mine. It's the final straw. I'm hoping for a conviction and a public apology.” Ismaël Bine reports.
The numbers of migrants attempting hazardous clandestine crossings of the Channel to reach Britain, mostly in overcrowded small dinghies, has soared this year, already reaching well more than double the total of 2019. Now the British government has called on the Royal Navy to assist the country’s Border Force in a move officials say is intended to make the crossings “unviable”. In this interview with Mediapart, François Gemenne, a prominent Belgian political scientist specialised in migratory issues, says that the situation in the Channel is comparable to that in the Mediterranean and warns that “the idea of closing migratory routes is absurd and dangerous” and “will lead to yet more tragedies”.
As a presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron insisted he wanted to dispense with the old ways of doing politics. Yet over this summer President Macron has approved a series of appointments of loyal followers and advisers as well as political allies who have faced difficulties but whose support he may need. And as Manuel Jardinaud reports, this form of presidential patronage is exactly what French presidents have always done.
The French pharmaceuticals firm Sanofi has been in the headlines recently because of its setbacks in producing a vaccine against Covid-19, which will not now be ready until the end of 2021 at the earliest. Yet the group has nonetheless decided to go ahead with its restructuring plans and will be trimming back on its research while also moving many of its production plants into a separate company to be sold off. France is now paying the price for having abandoned its industrial and research strategies over the last thirty years. Martine Orange investigates.
France's upper classes look upon housemaids and housekeepers from Portugal as the most honest of domestic staff and as “pearls who they must hold on to at all costs”. Yet behind the walls of these families' sumptuous properties there lurks another world; one in which class differences are very much alive. Mediapart has spoken to Portuguese maids and housekeepers working in the north of France and heard their stories of long hours, unrelenting toil and penny-pinching employers. Mickaël Correia reports.
The civilian protest movement in Myanmar against the military coup of February 1st continued on Monday, when a general strike was held and hundreds of thousands again took to the streets of major towns and cities, including the capital Nay Pyi Taw, Yangon and Mandalay, despite the junta's warnings against a “confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life”. A group of young journalists in Myanmar, a collective called The Myanmar Project, have spent the past three weeks documenting the unfolding events across the country. Here, under cover of anonymity, they tell Laure Siegel what motivated them and how they go about their reporting.
