The Swiss multinational Nestlé, which owns the Vittel and Contrex brands, is facing a mounting series of problems in the Vosges département or county in north-east France where it obtains its supplies for those mineral waters. The French state has recently withdrawn its support for a lengthy water pipeline in the area, while a local councillor with family links to the Swiss company faces trial over an alleged conflict of interests. Now Mediapart has learnt that consumer and environmental groups are taking legal action against Nestlé for extracting water from certain boreholes without authorisation, and have accused the authorities of favouring the giant corporation over the needs of local people. Alexander Abdelilah and Robert Schmidt report.

The maximum-level biosafety laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the first of its kind to be built in China, and has been the centre of huge speculation since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic which originated in that city. The laboratory, which is equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4) including dangerous viruses such as Ebola, was built with the help of French experts and under the guidance of French billionaire businessman Alain Mérieux, despite strong objections by health and defence officials in Paris. Since the laboratory's inauguration by prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve in 2017, however, France has had no supervisory role in the running of the facility and planned cooperation between French researchers and the laboratory has come to a grinding halt. Karl Laske and Jacques Massey report.

Shortly after a committee of world football governing body FIFA in February 2015 controversially recommended that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar could be played in winter, the then FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke secretly met with Qatari businessman Nasser al-Khelaifi, president of French football club PSG and chairman of beIN Sports, who was thanked by Valcke hours later for a gift of a watch worth 40,000 euros, according to phone text messages revealed here by Mediapart. Al-Khelaifi denies he was behind the gift. Swiss prosecutors, meanwhile, have dropped their probe of the two men over suspected bribery, which included Valcke’s free use of a luxurious villa bought by al-Khelaifi in Sardinia. Yann Philippin reports.

The Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), which runs the top-tier professional football leagues in France, has voted to obtain a 224.5 million-euro loan from the French state to help out its member clubs, especially those in the elite Ligue 1 division. But even despite this help some clubs are on the brink of going into administration. Mediapart can reveal confidential documents which show the risky nature of the loan arrangement, which the state agreed to without making any solvency checks. As Laurent Mauduit writes, there is a risk that French taxpayers could end up having to pay the bill for the excesses of the football industry.

In the aftermath, when it comes, of the Covid-19 virus pandemic the world will undoubtedly emerge with profound changes to old orders. In one of a series of reflections upon the transformations that lie ahead, Ludovic Lamant interviewed Filipino academic Walden Bello, a leading theoretician of the anti-globalization movement, who warns against the danger of the far-right “espousing deglobalization and economic nationalism of a frightening kind”.

In Senegal, the West African former French colony, the fishing industry plays a major social and economic role. While it is a key provider of protein for the population, it is also a major sector for exports, employing around 600,000 people, representing 17% of the country’s labour force.    With the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the dive in air traffic, fish exports have plummeted, while emergency measures imposed to contain the spread of the virus, including a night-time curfew, add further to the crisis. This photo reportage in the port of Hann, one of Senegal’s biggest fish auction sites, situated on the outskirts of the capital Dakar, was led over two days in mid-April, shortly before the start of the Ramadan in this majority Muslim country. The port is normally bustling with activity and a constant toing and froing of ocean-going pirogues, the largest of which can spend weeks trawling the Atlantic. But already, the fishermen and wholesalers were facing a severe downturn in business, when even the most coveted fish, normally reserved for the Asian and European markets, were selling at knock-down prices on local markets.

One of the side effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been a shake-up in the world of culture, including in France. As cinemas have stayed closed and music festival and tours have been cancelled, online streaming has stepped in to satisfy consumer demand for new film releases and live performances. Critics fear that not only is the culture industry rapidly becoming concentrated into the hands of a few major global players, there is also a risk that the dominance of online in films and music will reduce cultural diversity for many people – especially the poorest. Mickaël Correia reports.

Trade officials working for the European Commission may be having to work from home because of the coronavirus pandemic but they are still busy negotiating free trade deals with countries around the world on behalf of the European Union. As Mediapart's Brussels correspondent Ludovic Lamant reports, these officials are behaving as if the Covid-19 outbreak has not had a dramatic effect on everything – including the way people regard world trade and globalisation.

The coronavirus epidemic in France and the lockdown restrictions on public movement aimed at containing it are forcing drug dealers to adapt their business methods. They are also faced with a significant downturn in earnings as supplies are trapped behind closed national borders and their stock begins running out. In this report, originally published by Mediapart’s online regional news partner Mediacités, Mathieu Martinière investigates developments in the dark traffic in and around Lyon, France’s second-largest city.

The threat of the Covid-19 coronavirus is particularly great for France's overseas regions and territories because of their remoteness and their lack of infrastructure. But above all, as Julien Sartre writes, the pandemic risks being a disaster for the morale and mental well-being of the people living on these far-flung lands.