Mediapart has gained access to a detailed account of the annual payments made to former French presidents and prime ministers in a lifelong system of perks and privileges that beggars belief. With items ranging from newspaper and dry-cleaning costs to the payment of staff, offices and vehicles, the country’s three surviving former heads of state cost the taxpayer a yearly 6.2 million euros. Former prime ministers, meanwhile, receive tens of thousands of euros annually for staff and vehicles, including one who left office 25 years ago. Mathilde Mathieu reports.
In the early hours of November 18th, 2015 officers from the French police's elite antiterrorism unit RAID staged an assault on a flat at Saint-Denis, just north of Paris. The operation led to the death of two terrorists who had carried out the attacks in Paris on November 13th. Mediapart has discovered that though the police claim they came under “sustained” fire during the assault, in fact the terrorists in the flat only fired eleven rounds, against more than 1,500 from police officers. Most of the shots sustained by the police came from their own officers. Matthieu Suc reports.
Former French finance minister Jérôme Cahuzac will next month stand trial on charges of tax evasion and money laundering. The trial follows a two-year judicial investigation which was itself prompted by Mediapart’s revelations that Cahuzac held a secret bank account abroad, which he first denied before finally confessing in April 2013. Mediapart has gained access to the concluding report by the magistrates which details the evidence for sending Cahuzac for trial. Fabrice Arfi reports.
New and compelling evidence has emerged to suggest that the conviction of the Société Générale’s so-called ‘rogue trader’ Jérôme Kerviel, who was jailed for his actions that were estimated to have cost the bank 4.9 billion euros, is unsound and was reached after a botched and biased investigation steered by the bank, Mediapart can reveal. The latter claimed that Kerviel’s superiors knew nothing of his reckless trades. But in a secretly-taped conversation, a senior magistrate with the Paris public prosecutor’s office involved in the case says the police officer in charge of the investigation was “entirely manipulated” by the bank, and that it was “obvious” that “the Société Générale knew” what its trader was doing. Martine Orange reports.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into a suspected money laundering operation involving Qatari Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani’s French investment arm, French Properties Management (FPM), Mediapart can reveal. The probe, prompted by information from a whistleblowing former employee of FPM, is the latest to target the activities of the Paris-based firm, which is also cited in two other separate judicial investigations in France for “misuse of company assets” and “corruption and influence peddling”. Yann Philippin reports.
In 2011 Nicolas Sarkozy's then foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie was forced to quit after details emerged in the midst of the Arab Spring uprising of her ties with Tunisian leader Ben Ali. Now Mediapart can reveal details of a new affair involving the right-wing politician relating to when she was interior minister under the same administration. According to documents seen by Mediapart, during her time in office Alliot-Marie backed a series of measures favourable to the casino industry in France – at the same time as her family was buying shares in casino-owning companies. Antton Rouget reports.
Of the 130 people killed by gunmen and suicide bombers during the November 13th terrorist attacks in Paris, the single worst toll was at the siege of the Bataclan theatre and music hall which left 90 people dead. It has since emerged that the Bataclan was already the target of a jihadist plot in 2010, while France’s justice minister has dismissed any connection between that and the massacre in November. Mediapart has obtained access to a Belgian police report sent to their French colleagues in 2011 which clearly identifies the close links between the main suspect in the 2010 plot and the French jihadist who fronted the Islamic State group’s video claiming responsibility for the November attacks.
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has been sent for trial in France for “negligence” when she was French finance minister in her management of an arbitration process that awarded French businessman Bernard Tapie with 404 million euros paid out of public funds, Mediapart can reveal. Earlier this month the Paris appeals court ordered Tapie to pay back the controversial 2008 payout. Michel Deléan and Laurent Mauduit report.
One of the world’s most prominent art dealers, Guy Wildenstein, is to stand trial in Paris next month on charges of tax fraud and money laundering. The case centres on undeclared assets from the estate of his late father Daniel Wildenstein, for which Guy Wildenstein and other members of his family have received a record tax adjustment totalling 550 million euros. Mediapart has gained access to the judicial document detailing the case for the trial, and which reveals the staggering sums involved and the complex offshore structures that hid, among other assets, a stash of prized artworks. Laurent Mauduit reports.
French intelligence agencies knew as far back as 2009 that Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, one of the three suicide bombers who attacked the Batalcan concert hall in Paris, had been radicalised in a group in France led by a veteran jihadist with a history of planning terrorist attacks, Mediapart can reveal. Mostefaï had also been spotted with the group when it was under surveillance in April 2014, and the authorities were later informed that he had almost certainly gone to Syria, at the same time as another future Bataclan bomber. But by late 2014 the secret services no longer knew of his whereabouts. He did not resurface again until November 13th, 2015, when he was part of the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people in Paris. The French authorities, however, deny there was any intelligence blunder. Yann Philippin, Marine Turchi and Fabrice Arfi report.
