In the spring of 2024 reports that Malian-born French singer Aya Nakamura would perform at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics later that summer attracted controversy and opposition. More than a year later, thirteen members of the extreme-right group Les Natifs are set to stand trial in a Paris court over a banner they wrote attacking her planned participation in that ceremony. Among those appearing in court on June 4th is a young woman who, at the time of the banner incident, was a parliamentary assistant to MPs from the far-right Rassemblement National party. Matthieu Suc reports.

On May 22nd the city of Strasbourg in north-east France announced that it was planning to twin with the Aida refugee camp for Palestinians in the West Bank. But this declaration, though it led to criticism of the city's mayor, is not an isolated act. Across France major towns and smaller councils alike are establishing or strengthening partnerships with Palestinians. However, this form of grassroots diplomacy has not gone down well with the Israeli authorities: two delegations of local elected representatives from France were banned from entering the country in April. Clothilde Mraffko reports.

The Mediterranean sea continues to be a watery graveyard for many migrants seeking to reach the shores of Europe. Sometimes large-scale tragedies at sea hit the headlines and occasionally even reach the courts. But often the tragic loss of life in such circumstances receives scant attention. Here Mediapart recounts the story of one such harrowing event which claimed the lives of more than 50 people. In March 2024, an inflatable boat carrying around 80 people drifted for nearly a week in the central Mediterranean. Though spotted several times, no one came to its aid; some have claimed it was “left to die”. In the end, only 24 people survived. Cécile Debarge reports from Italy on its grim journey.

On May 27th the French Parliament's lower chamber, the National Assembly, voted for a bill that gives the right to assisted dying. The Senate, the upper chamber, still has to vote on the law and that could be a long process. But for reasons of democracy, secularism and the new freedom it creates, we should welcome the MPs' backing for this new right in France, argues Mediapart's co-editor Lénaïg Bredoux in this op-ed article. However, she says that now more than ever we must battle to save our healthcare system, so that neoliberalism and capitalist cost-cutting can never exploit this right in order to choose who among us should exercise it.

French professional football, and in particular the top-level Ligue 1, is having to confront massive financial problems as the domestic season comes to an end. Indeed, from the collapse of a seemingly-lucrative deal with media rights company Mediapro to the Faustian pact later signed with Jersey-based private equity fund CVC, top-flight club football in France has completely lost its way in the space of just a few years. The root cause, as Mathias Thépot explains here, is that the game has become blinded by delusions of grandeur and undermined by a shaky economic model, leading to financial shortfalls which some of the weaker French clubs may struggle to survive.

Emmanuel Macron and his principal opponent, far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, recently found common ground when commenting on two judicial affairs. In the case of Le Pen, it was about her conviction for embezzlement and a sentence that bans her for five years from holding public office. In the case of Macron, it was his refusal to back calls to strip former president Nicolas Sarkozy of his Légion d’honneur award after his conviction for corruption. Both cited the electoral choice by “the sovereign people” as superior to the laws in place. In this op-ed article, Fabrice Arfi, co-head of Mediapart’s investigations unit, argues that this anti-judicial populism, a sort of French Trumpism, is the result of a political and moral collapse that is not limited to one political camp alone.

Following the unrest that took place in May 2024 in its Pacific Ocean territory of New Caledonia, the French state transferred seven high-profile activists accused of involvement in the disturbances to mainland France, amid much controversy. But at the same time the Paris authorities also secretly flew dozens of convicted criminals from their New Caledonian cells to serve in prisons around France, for reasons that still remain unclear. Some of these prisoners have since been released from jail, but now lack the financial means either to live in metropolitan France or to pay for the long flight back home. Rémi Carayol and Benoît Godin report on the fate of these abandoned “deportees”, most of whom are Kanaks, the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

The government on Wednesday released a redacted version of a report on the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in France. For weeks, political and media attention has been fixated on the issue, driven by interior minister Bruno Retailleau, who is aware of the political gain he might reap from it. The document - which was presented to France's Defence and National Security Council - immediately led to a call from President Emmanuel Macron for new measures to counter what the authors call a “threat to national cohesion”. One of the expert witnesses questioned for the report was researcher Frank Fregosi. In an interview with Mediapart's Lucie Delaporte, the academic voices his concern over the impact of the document and the widespread climate of mistrust facing practising Muslims in France.

In a landslide result, hardline French interior minister Bruno Retailleau was on Sunday elected as the new leader of the conservative party Les Républicains (LR), once a party of government but which has over recent years entered into a spiral of decline. Retailleau, 64, a senator largely unknown to the wider public before entering government last September, now has the task of rebuilding the party, with his eye on the presidential elections due in 2027. In this analysis of Retailleau’s prospects, Ilyes Ramdani considers the many scenarios for the LR’s future, including as kingmaker for the centre- or far-right in France’s increasingly fractured political landscape.

Following Mediapart’s publication on February 26th 2025 of an article entitled “The unlikely tale of a French 'spy' butler, a Russian oligarch and a UK intelligence company”, Jim Perrichon sent us this right of reply.