A preliminary investigation into rape and sexual assault allegations concerning the actor and director, who is perhaps best known for directing the 2019 film 'La Belle Époque', was opened on July 5th by Paris prosecutors. When approached, Nicolas Bedos, who benefits from a presumption of innocence, declined to comment. Four women have spoken to Mediapart about the film director. Marine Turchi reports.
Many French media outlets continue to harbour clichéd views of life in working class areas and this in turn leads to bias in how events in the country's suburbs – often places of high immigration and poverty - are covered. Many newsroom journalists are unhappy at the persistence of such views, but say they choose to keep silent for fear of being mocked or being accused of a lack of neutrality. Yunnes Abzouz investigates.
France’s 7.8-billion-euro sale to India in 2016 of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter jets, the subject of an ongoing French judicial investigation, is mired by suspected corruption involving politicians and industrialists. As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who signed the deal, prepares to attend France’s Bastille Day celebrations as guest of honour, documents obtained by Mediapart reveal how Modi’s billionaire friend, Anil Ambani, boss of the Indian conglomerate Reliance Group, which was handed a lucrative contract as a condition of the Rafale sale, directly solicited the intervention of then economy minister Emmanuel Macron and finance minister Michel Sapin in a bid to escape a 151-million-euro tax claim against his French subsidiary. The tax adjustment was finally cut down to 6.6 million euros. Yann Philippin reports.
Mediapart can reveal that close family members of Russians sanctioned after the invasion of Ukraine are continuing to use their luxury properties in France, which have escaped from being frozen by the French Treasury as assets. Among those benefiting include family members of Vladimir Putin's veteran spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and several oligarchs. The revelations emerge from a joint investigation carried out with the German NGO Civil Forum for Asset Recovery (CIFAR) and media network European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). Sébastien Bourdon, Yann Philippin and Alexandre Brutelle (CIFAR) report.
The French government has introduced a controversial national database for monitoring the evolution of children born to jihadist parents and who have been returned to France from camps in Syria. The system, officially described as ensuring the “protection” of the minors and to prevent them “engaging in a process of delinquency or radicalisation”, contains very sensitive personal information about the children, and can be accessed by a wide range of administrations. It has come in for sharp criticism from rights campaigners, and faces a legal challenge before the Council of State, France’s highest administrative court, while Mediapart has learnt that the public prosecution services’ anti-terrorist branch has declined to participate in it. David Perrotin and Matthieu Suc report.
French luxury cruise ship firm Compagnie du Ponant, owned by billionaire François Pinault, operates five-star voyages to Antarctica, notably on its state-of-the-art, ice-breaking liner, Le Commandant Charcot. The cruises are advertised as environmentally responsible, with onboard conferences by naturalists to educate the passengers on the habitat of the Earth’s last virgin continent. In fact, the boats, registered in a French tax-friendly overseas territory, are highly polluting, and the increasingly popular tourist traffic to the Antarctic region is contributing to the alarming rate of melting of its ice sheet. Mickaël Correia reports.
France’s former armed forces minister Florence Parly was unknowingly targeted while in office by the secret Pegasus spyware, sold to governments by Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group, bringing the total number of French ministers whose phones were infected with the eavesdropping tool – along with that of President Emmanuel Macron – to seven, Mediapart has learnt. A judicial investigation has established that at least 23 people in France, including journalists as well as politicians, fell victim to the spyware between 2019 and 2020. Fabrice Arfi and Ellen Salvi report.
French prosecutors earlier this month recommended that former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, along with three of his former ministers and nine other individuals, stand trial for the alleged illegal funding of his 2007 election campaign by the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Mediapart obtained access to the 425-page document in which the prosecutors detail the evidence and their conclusions. The Libyan financing arrangements could not have been carried out, they write, “without the consent and the perfect knowledge” of Sarkozy, for whom “the hoped-for advantage consisted of obtaining secret financial support for the 2007 electoral campaign”. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.
Last autumn France's Ministry of Education issued an update on the rules and advice to education authorities regarding the wearing of “conspicuous” religious symbols, which are banned in French schools. Mediapart has investigated how this latest advice is being applied in one secondary school in Marseille. Several pupils there who have worn outfits judged to be contrary to the rules say they have been “persecuted” by the school management. They also complain of scandalous comments made by the school's headteacher. Teachers meanwhile talk of a “tense” atmosphere and a divided staffroom. Yasmine Sellami reports.
Months after the 2020 murder of history and geographer teacher Samuel Paty by a radicalised youth, junior minister Marlène Schiappa set up the Fonds Marianne to counter extremism and 'defend Republican values'. This government-funded body has since paid out just over two million euros to 17 different associations. But investigations by the media, including Mediapart, have raised question marks over two of the associations who received large sums from the fund and over the way this money was used. One in particular, Reconstruire le Commun, went on to publish videos attacking opponents of President Emmanuel Macron during the 2022 elections. And Mediapart can reveal that there are fresh questions today over the profile of some of those who took part in that charity's videos. Meanwhile, opposition politicians are calling for a Parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which has also been referred to the prosecution authorities. Antton Rouget and Ellen Salvi report.
