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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.