Late last year, the acclaimed French economist Thomas Piketty, a best-selling author for his work centred on wealth and income gaps, hailed by the Left and spurned by the Right, gave a conference at the university of Toulouse, south-west France, when he was surprised by a question from a student. It concerned a complaint for domestic violence filed against him in 2009 by his former partner, then a socialist MP and later culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti. His response prompted Filippetti to lodge a new complaint, this time for defamation, which has had the effect of breaking a decade-long taboo among the French media and political circles. Lénaïg Bredoux reports.
He remains one of the most fascinating and colourful figures in French politics. Arnaud Montebourg was a high-profile figure in the government of President François Hollande, who as economy minister had a very public spat with a US business boss. In August 2014 he quit after disagreeing with the government's policies and went off to work in commerce. In the last 18 months Montebourg has kept a low public profile but has been assiduously meeting key figures and thinkers on the French Left. So is he, as many believe, discreetly preparing a bid for the French presidency in 2017? Lénaïg Bredoux reports.
Three high-profile ministers left the government when it was reshuffled at the end of August, having signalled their disagreement with the economic policy being pursued by President François Hollande. Former minister for the economy Arnaud Montebourg and ex-education minister Benoît Hamon have both recently returned to the political fray, with more public criticism of the direction the administration is taking. Now, in an exclusive interview with Mediapart, the third minister, former culture boss Aurélie Filippetti, talks about how her “conscience” compelled her to leave government, the need for a fresh approach to the economy and her wish for a major reform of the French Constitution to make government “less monarchical”. She spoke to Lénaïg Bredoux.
A senior figure in the Socialist Party has angrily criticised French culture minister Aurélie Filippetti for allegedly snubbing Rivesaltes, a former internment and deportation camp in southern France which is set to become a memorial in 2015, during a recent trip to the area. The culture minister has dismissed the claims as 'absurd'. To understand the importance of the memorial site behind this political squabble, Mediapart asked historian Denis Peschanski to describe the political and historical issues at stake in a camp that revives some of the worst memories of the Second World War in France. Antoine Perraud reports.
The future of the French body for policing illegal downloads, Hadopi, is uncertain after government says it is too expensive and failing to meet its goals.
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