In a series of confessions before US and German prosecutors, the transcripts of which have been obtained by Mediapart, former Libyan secret services agent Musbah Eter detailed how intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, Muammar Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, and his bomb-maker “Masud”, planned and carried out a series of bombings in the 1980s, including that which downed a Pan Am Boeing 747 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Eter’s statements, given in a series of interrogations between 2013 and 2015, have never before been made public and remained unexploited by prosecution services. That may change ahead of a new trial over the Lockerbie bombing due in the US next April. Karl Laske and Vincent Nouzille report.
The macabre and seemingly weekly occurrence of bodies washed ashore on France’s northern Channel coast bears witness to the recurrent tragedies that befall migrants attempting the dangerous clandestine passage to southern England in overcrowded, unseaworthy dinghies. When the small boats sink, the exact numbers of passengers who originally embarked on them is mostly unknown, as are the numbers who disappear in the incidents. Maïa Courtois, Maël Galisson and Simon Mauvieux report on the difficult and often mismanaged process of identifying the corpses of victims returned by the sea, and the angst of the families who remain uncertain of their fate.
In the spring of 2024 reports that Malian-born French singer Aya Nakamura would perform at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics later that summer attracted controversy and opposition. More than a year later, thirteen members of the extreme-right group Les Natifs are set to stand trial in a Paris court over a banner they wrote attacking her planned participation in that ceremony. Among those appearing in court on June 4th is a young woman who, at the time of the banner incident, was a parliamentary assistant to MPs from the far-right Rassemblement National party. Matthieu Suc reports.
The French intelligence services are on the alert for saboteurs in the pay of Russia operating across European countries, including France, and who are said to be planning to intervene during forthcoming elections on the continent. The security agencies fear that their methods will not involve simply disinformation but more direct action. The next Kremlin target could be the Polish presidential election later this month. According to intelligence reports, these potential saboteurs have been trained in the Balkans, in particular by a Bulgarian neo-Nazi who is wanted by French prosecutors in connection with the painting of red handprints on the Shoah Memorial in Paris in 2024. Matthieu Suc reports.
When Paris receives a request from a foreign country for the return of human remains held in France's public museum collections, such demands can be granted under recent legislation. But the French state argues that there is a legal vacuum when such claims instead come from French overseas territories such as French Guiana on the South American mainland and Réunion in the Indian Ocean, both of which are governed from Paris. Julien Sartre reports on attempts to change the law to allow remains held by metropolitan museums to be returned to these distant French territories.
For more than twenty years residents living near a steel plant operated by ArcelorMittal at Fos-sur-Mer on France's Mediterranean coast have been campaigning against the pollution it has been spewing out. According to Mediapart's information, and later confirmed by local prosecutors in nearby Marseille, the multinational steel giant ArcelorMittal – run by Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal - has now been placed under formal investigation over the pollution. The criminal probe centres on claims that the steel plant has exposed residents to illegal emissions and put their lives in danger. The company says it denies the accusations. Pascale Pascariello reports.
While mention of the word torture was banned from official language at the time, the French military in Algeria encouraged the use of torture during the 1954-1962 war of independence, and with the consent of the government in Paris. Historian Fabrice Riceputi, an associate researcher with the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (IHTP), specialised in the events of the independence war, details here how, after the military experimented with torture and forced disappearances during the 1957 Battle of Algiers, French generals recommended a generalisation of the practice.
A criminal investigation into events at the Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram private school in south-west France is continuing. Meanwhile Mediapart can reveal that sixteen victims of sexual violence committed by religious figures at the Catholic institution have already been compensated over allegations that are now time-barred under the criminal law. There are also discussions taking place about whether and how this approach of acknowledging abuse and paying compensation can also be extended to victims of laypeople connected to the school. At the same time, prime minister François Bayrou continues to insist that he was never informed about abuse at the institution, which is in his political fiefdom. David Perrotin and Antton Rouget report.
Jim P., a French citizen employed as a butler, was given a suspended 18-month prison sentence by a French court on Friday for stealing from his former employer Sergei Pugachev, a former Russian oligarch turned critic of Vladimir Putin. In reality, Jim P. had been spying on his boss with the help of a London-based private intelligence-gathering company called Diligence who were themselves apparently working on behalf of a Russian state organisation. Gabrielle Leroyer reports on this intriguing saga.
The trial opened in Paris on Monday of five jihadists accused of the kidnapping and detention of four French journalists in Syria in 2013 and the perpetration of “acts of torture and barbarity” at a hospital in Aleppo taken over by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant group. Relatives of British aid worker David Haines, who was held alongside the French hostages before he was later decapitated, are present at the month-long trial as civil parties to the case, as is also his Italian colleague and fellow captive Federico Motka. Matthieu Suc reports on the background of the case and the evidence that emerged from almost ten years of investigations.
