A joint investigation by The Sunday Times and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reported that a group of Indian hackers were hired to spy on journalists and other individuals “who threatened to expose wrongdoing” over the awarding to Qatar of this year’s football World Cup. Among the “dozen” people reported to have been targeted are former UEFA president Michel Platini, French senator Nathalie Goulet, and Mediapart journalist Yann Philippin. Qatar denies any involvement in the hacking operation. Fabrice Arfi and Michaël Hajdenberg report.
The notion of 'anti-White racism' is an ideological construct aimed at downplaying the systemic, social and cultural racism endured by black people and people of North African origin in France. Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel says that its emergence in public debate is a sign of how France has failed to face up to the issue of colonialism, to both its long past and its persistence today.
The recently appointed president and nearly all of the members of France’s independent advisory commission on digital affairs, the CNNum, resigned this week in protest at the government’s move to exclude from the body outspoken feminist and anti-racist activist Rokhaya Diallo. She and another newly chosen CNNum advisor, start-up entrepreneur and rapper Hicham Kochman, also known as Axiom, were the target of a political campaign that has reignited the debate over the extent of institutional racism in France, and the stigmatisation of racial minorities in the country. In an interview with Mediapart, Kochman speaks of his despair that “if you are Black or Arab, if you come from certain neighbourhoods, however competent you might be you have no chance of succeeding”.
The head of France's independent advisory commission on digital affairs and most of the commission's members have resigned after the government ordered the removal from among them of a prominent black feminist and anti-racism activist after complaints from the Right about her militant actions and outspoken comments on 'institutional racism' in the country.
As the first cracks appear in the “national unity” urged by President François Hollande, the spotlight has been turned on the reaction of French Muslims. Ahead of Sunday's 'Republican march' to show solidarity over the Charlie Hebdo killings, the far right and sections of the Right have called on France's Muslims to condemn the massacre publicly. On the Left, opinions are divided on the issue. Mediapart's Hubert Huertas argues that we are faced with two very different visions of France – one that demands assimilation, the other that embraces diversity.
