The influential Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques (OFCE), known as the French Economic Observatory in English, has just published a powerful critique of French government economic policy. In cautious but bleak language it charts how austerity is sapping France's economy while pointing out that the government's massive hand-outs to companies will contribute only a meagre stimulus to growth. Its grim conclusions match those of other economists, but this study differs by also showing how austerity choked off a recovery back in 2010 that could have delivered nearly 2.4% growth instead of the anaemic, near-zero growth since. It is, argues Mediapart's Laurent Mauduit, a damning indictment of President François Hollande's economic strategy.
The French Parliament this week formally adopted a new anti-terrorism law, part of which aims to stop terrorists using the internet to attract recruits and plot attacks. It will allow the authorities to block websites that “condone terrorism” and will create a new offence of “individual terrorist enterprise”. One key objective is to stop the “preparation” of attacks via the web. The government, which has rushed these measures through, says they are needed to combat the growing use of the internet and social media by terror groups and in particular to tackle the threat of so-called “lone wolf” terrorists operating in France and elsewhere. But civil liberties groups, judges and the state body that oversees the impact of digital technology have condemned the law as an attack on freedom, ineffective and unworkable. Jérôme Hourdeaux details the new measures.
On Thursday French author Patrick Modiano was named as the 2014 recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. In its citation the Swedish Academy said the prize had been awarded to honour “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the Occupation”. It is, above all, recognition of 40 years of an obsessive quest, motivated by the fear of forgetting. Here Mediapart journalist Ellen Salvi, who spent five years at the Sorbonne in Paris studying Modiano's work and who has met the media-shy writer in person, shares her insight into the past influences and “previous lives” that have helped shape his writing.
In recent days six people have been placed under formal investigation in connection with the presidential election financial scandal that is rocking the main right-wing opposition party, the UMP. Judges are investigating a system of fake invoicing by communications firm Bygmalion in 2012 in which they unlawfully billed the UMP rather than Nicolas Sarkozy's election team for work they did organising campaign rallies. This was apparently done to avoid the Sarkozy campaign breaching strict rules on how much presidential candidates can spend. This growing scandal is now potentially a major threat to Sarkozy's political comeback, though the former president himself claims he knew nothing of the affair or even the name Bygmalion at the time. Here Mathilde Mathieu, Ellen Salvi and Marine Turchi give a guide to the main players in the so-called Bygmalion affair and the issues at stake.
French news agency Agence France-Presse – nearly always known by its initials AFP - has had a colourful and often troubled 180-year history of being buffeted by French and international politics, financial vagaries and two world wars. Emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of Agence Havas in 1944, the modern version of the agency has had to deal with the conflicting demands of editorial independence and state funding. All this is related in a new book by AFP veteran Xavier Baron, Le Monde en direct. Here, Mediapart's Philippe Riès, himself a former AFP journalist, salutes the book and AFP's survival against the odds. But he also ponders on the lessons that can be learned about press independence from the story of an agency that still relies on government funding for its existence.
The brutal execution of French climber Hervé Gourdel by a little-known terrorist group in Algeria has thrown the spotlight on attempts by Islamic State (IS) to extend its network of influence across North Africa and beyond. The Algerian group Jund al-Khilafa kidnapped and beheaded the French mountaineer as a gruesome and public sign of allegiance to the Iraq and Syria-based group. But so far Islamic State has failed to win the allegiance of any other group in Africa as it competes with al-Qaeda for dominance among the jihadist groups of the world. As Pierre Puchot reports, its attempt to be the global leader in jihadism may depend on lasting control of Iraqi oil wealth.
For the last three years France's upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, has been under the political control of the Left, a rarity in the history of the Fifth Republic. On Sunday that brief interlude ended when, as expected, the Right regained control of the chamber during partial elections, with the centre-right faring especially well. And for the first time the far-right Front National gained entry to the Senate, picking up two seats. Meanwhile the ruling Socialist Party took comfort from the fact that a number of its candidates fared better than expected, though there were some symbolic defeats for key allies of President François Hollande. Mathieu Magnaudeix analyses the significance of the weekend's elections.
France’s Pierre Moscovici has been named as the new European Union commissioner for economic and monetary affairs in Brussels. At first glance it appears a clear-cut triumph for President François Hollande who has installed his former finance minister in a key economic post at the heart of the EU despite German opposition. It is also a sign that the new European Commission president Claude Juncker wants to display his independence from German chancellor Angela Merkel. But as Ludovic Lamant reports, Juncker has also shaken up the Commission's structure and placed two economic hawks alongside the French commissioner. Some observers believe their main role is to stop the French “social democrat” being too soft on member countries struggling to cut their deficits – and in particular France.
France's pupils and teachers have gone back to school this week in the annual ritual known as the 'rentrée scolaire'. Amid the usual hopes and expectations for the new school year, many teachers feel a growing sense of frustration. For despite the promise by President François Hollande to make education a priority and create 60,000 new teaching posts, many current staff feel their working conditions and pay have been overlooked. In some deprived areas, meanwhile, hard-pressed teachers have been voting with their feet, asking to be transferred to less challenging regions. Here Mediapart examines the situation in three of those vulnerable education authorities, who have been forced to take on thousands of trainee teachers to fill their classrooms this year. Thomas Saint-Cricq and Lucie Delaporte report.
Former French prime minister Alain Juppé on Wednesday announced he will run to be his conservative UMP party’s candidate in presidential elections due in 2017. The surprise declaration by the 69 year-old Gaullist veteran has upstaged his main rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was widely expected to announce a return to political life in the coming weeks. More importantly, Juppé has forced Sarkozy into a primary contest the latter hoped to avoid, and which threatens his ambition of re-claiming the presidency he lost in 2012. Hubert Huertas analyses the upset caused by the risky move of a man who as at last taken the lead after playing second fiddle during almost 40 years in politics.
