Keyword: report

The UN child agency said an extra 440,000 minors fell into poverty between 2008-12, reaching one in five today, 30,000 of whom are homeless.

© DR

French nuclear safety inspectors have discovered numerous faults with crucial safety valves in the cooling system of what will be one of the world’s biggest nuclear power plants under construction at Flamanville, on the Channel coast, Mediapart can reveal. The malfunctioning valves for the Areva-designed, third-generation European Pressurized Reactor could cause its meltdown, in a similar scenario to the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US. The inspectors’ damning confidential report, obtained by Mediapart, follows the revelation last month that the Flamanville EPR reactor’s vessel contained excessive amounts of carbon that could cause it to crack. Pascale Pascariello reports.

French crash report says Andreas Lubitz repeatedly set Spain-bound plane to drop to 100ft before slamming it into French Alps on return flight.

Government-commissioned report on tackling vast food wastage urges the hitherto unthinkable introduction of the doggy bag in restaurants.

Mediapart has gained access to a report by the French government’s environment and energy agency which concludes that France’s electricity supply, of which 75% is currently produced by nuclear power, could be entirely provided by renewable energies in 2050. Furthermore, the study found that a 100% reliance on renewables is not only materially and technologically feasible, but that it would also cost relatively little more than the electricity supply in which nuclear power plays a key part. The study was due to be made public this month, but its publication has now been inexplicably postponed until after the summer, and after key energy strategy decisions are to be taken by the government. In this report by Christophe Gueugneau and Jade Lindgaard, Mediapart presents the study in its entirety and highlights the key findings.

Earlier this year it was revealed that the Pasteur Institute had lost more than 2,300 vials containing the potentially deadly SARS virus that were stocked on its premises in Paris. Mediapart has gained access to a confidential report of the investigation launched into the blunder, and from which it emerges that not only the vials went missing, but also the boxes and a freezer in which they were stored. The investigation contradicts the institute’s claim that the missing virus samples were no longer dangerous, and says that access to where they were kept was alarmingly insecure. Michel de Pracontal details the findings.

June 2009 crash which killed all 228 people on board 'could have been avoided if the crew had taken appropriate action' says expert report.

German magazine Focus cited NATO sources in a report that Paris paid the kidnappers of four French journalists freed earlier this month.

Experts in Paris reportedly reject suggestions the PLO leader may have died from polonium poisoning, saying he had a 'generalised infection'.

Dozens of exploration wells could be drilled in regions where seismic data has indicated promising reserves, a parliamentary commission said.

Rules on the length of a baguette or the composition of pavement concrete cost France an estimated 2 billion euros between 2008-2011.

Political timetable offers opportunity for president to put in place an ambitious reform strategy on pensions, unemployment benefit and health.

President François Hollande is urged by both a government-commissioned report by former EADS boss, and by the IMF, to slash employment costs.

French interior minister Manuel Valls last week presented the findings of a damning official police internal investigation into the handling of the case of Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah, a self-confessed jihadist who shot seven dead in a ten-day rampage in south-west France in March, and in which France’s intelligence services have been accused of deliberately hiding their role. Louise Fessard examines the report’s findings.  

Just six months after the death in mysterious circumstances of Richard Descoings, head of one of France’s most prestigious higher education institutions, the Paris Institute of Political Studies, whose body was found in a New York hotel, the venerable school has been rocked again, this time by a scathing report from France’s national audit office slamming gross financial mismanagement by Descoings and a group of his senior colleagues who paid themselves a gravy-train existence of massive salary hikes, bonus awards and other perks. Jade Lindgaard reports.