Before he joined the San Antonio Spurs in the US, the French basketball prodigy Victor Wembanyama, now an MBA superstar, played for one year with Metropolitans 92, based in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt. The club was owned by the town hall, and the local mayor did his utmost to sign Wembanyama, including seeking funding from private companies in deals that are now at the centre of a prosecutors’ probe into suspected corruption.
While investigations continue into the Bondi Beach shootings in Australia last Sunday, in which 15 people attending a Jewish religious celebration were killed, the massacre increasingly appears linked to the so-called Islamic State group. In France, as elsewhere, many among the Jewish population have voiced fears over increasing threats of anti-Semitic attacks, notably since the war in Gaza. As Matthieu Suc details here, those threats come from a variety of sources, including not only jihadists but also state agencies employing proxies to hide their involvement in terrorism and intimidation.
French intelligence services have obtained evidence that Russia's presidential office approved a plan to target both the Jewish and Muslim communities in this country. The aim of these “active measures” operations is to sow division and discord within the heart of French society.
Large artificial reservoirs, built for farmers and filled from underground water sources in winter to irrigate crops during the summer, are bitterly opposed by environmentalists and have been a source of fierce debate and sometimes violent conflict in France. The company behind the most controversial reservoir, at Sainte-Soline in west France, has been hit by recent court rulings. But in any case, as a Mediapart investigation here shows, the entire economic model of these vast 'mega-basin' crop-watering systems is now looking increasingly unviable.
In October last year, an inflatable dinghy carrying an estimated total of 60-70 migrants left the north-east French coast hoping to cross the Channel to England. But shortly after leaving it took on water and sank. While 48 people on board were saved by French rescue services, an official toll announced three others died. But in reality, at least a dozen more people went missing. Thirteen bodies were soon found on French beaches and in the water but now, one year on, nine of them have still not been identified, despite the cooperation of families of the disappeared.
A Mediapart investigation has revealed that at least nine men convicted of, or awaiting trial for, far-right terrorism-related offences in France have either held positions of responsibility within Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National - or its predecessor the Front National - or have stood as party candidates in local and national elections. It is the only French political party with such links to these kinds of cases.
The well-known psychoanalyst and broadcaster Gérard Miller was formally placed under investigation on October 2nd, in connection with four allegations of rape – three involving minors – and two claims of sexual assault, committed between 2000 and 2020. He was also designated an assisted witness – an intermediate status in French law between that of a witness and a formal suspect - in connection with the alleged rape of a minor over the age of 15.
Gaël Perdriau, mayor of the city of Saint-Étienne in south-east France, stood trial on September 22nd for his role in a homophobic blackmail plot against his own deputy, who was secretly filmed with a male escort in an hotel room. In the dock alongside him are three former close associates of the rightwing mayor, who all turned on him during the judicial investigation that led to these proceedings. Antton Rouget reports on the background to an extraordinary trial that is expected to last a week.
Prime minister François Bayrou has approved the renovation of his office in Pau, the small city in south-west France where he is also still the serving mayor. The aim of the work is to “restore the original splendour” of that office, and the bill - to be paid from public funds - comes in at 40,000 euros, according to Mediapart's information. Such a move is politically explosive in the middle of a national austerity plan being pushed by the prime minister himself and against the backdrop of a city council whose public debt has soared since it came under Bayrou's control. Fabrice Arfi and Antton Rouget report.
Earlier this month a screening of the hit film 'Barbie' in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec was cancelled after local protests. Yet the move to stop this film being shown was just the latest episode in a long list of cancel-culture attacks on the freedom to stage artistic performances across France. Many of these interventions have come from fundamentalist Catholic and nationalist groups, with some also emanating from the Left. Faced with such threats, some local elected representatives have felt obliged to yield to the pressure and cancel events. Laura Wojcik reports.
