The death of 21-year-old botany student Rémi Fraisse following clashes between gendarmes and opponents of a dam project in south-west France has led to major political fallout, as well as being a personal tragedy. President François Hollande's government has been accused of being too slow to react to the tragic events, and then of siding too much and too quickly with the security forces and of having ignored warnings about “violent” policing at the protest site. Ministers have meanwhile accused green politicians of seeking to make political capital out of the death and of prejudging the outcome of judicial investigations. The under-pressure interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has now stopped the use of so-called 'offensive' grenades of the type believed to have caused the death of Rémi Fraisse, while the building of the dam itself has been suspended. Louise Fessard, Jade Lindgaard, Nicolas Bérard and Mathieu Magnaudeix examine the repercussions of the tragedy and look at the background to what the lawyer for the victim's family has described as an “unprecedented state scandal”.
The green alliance Europe Écologie-Les Verts, which has two ministers in the French government, ended its annual summer gathering this weekend in better spirits than many had predicted. Some green-tinged policy announcements and victory over one of their government 'enemies' seem to have ensured their participation in President Hollande's socialist administration for some time to come. But in reality the Greens' 'successes' were little more than avoiding defeats. Stéphane Alliès explains.
