In the early hours of November 18th, 2015 officers from the French police's elite antiterrorism unit RAID staged an assault on a flat at Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The operation led to the death of two terrorists who had carried out the attacks in Paris on November 13th. Mediapart has discovered that though the police claim they came under “sustained” fire during the assault, in fact the terrorists in the flat only fired eleven rounds, against more than 1,500 from police officers. Most of the shots sustained by the police came from their own officers. Matthieu Suc reports.
The general secretary of France's leading trade union, the Confédération générale du travail (CGT), could soon be forced out of his job after an embarrassing series of revelations about expensive renovations to his flat and office and a hefty lump sum payment. Many observers believe that despite last-ditch attempts to save his position Thierry Lepaon, who was seen a compromise candidate when he took over the reins of power at the union in March 2013, will soon have to stand down amid growing anger among rank-and-file members following the media disclosures. As Dan Israel reports, Lepaon's rapid fall from grace is a sign of a deeper malaise inside what is still the country's most powerful trade union.
What may have at first seemed like a simple affair of the heart on the part of President François Hollande looks set to take on a political dimension. Mediapart can reveal that the flat where Hollande is reported to meet actress Julie Gayet has connections with a convicted criminal suspected of links to Corsican organised crime. This immediately raises questions of what France's 'top cop', interior minister Manuel Valls, knew about the affair. Was he unaware of the flat's links to a criminal? Or did an amorous president fall into a political trap?
