The Riviera coastal area in south-east France surrounding the border with Italy has become a major crossing point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to reach northern Europe. Despite a crackdown on the clandestine crossings by French and Italian police, many migrants continue to attempt the journey, either by by train or the perilous route of railway tracks, despite a series of fatal and serious accidents. French rail employees are increasingly under pressure from both their company and the police to help with the hunt for the migrants. Louise Fessard met with railwaymen who refuse to collaborate with operations that one described as resembling scenes from the WWII German occupation.
The first round of the French Socialist Party’s primaries to choose its candidate for this spring’s presidential elections saw leftist former education minister Benoît Hamon arrive in the lead, followed in second place by Manuel Valls, on the party’s Right and who last month resigned as prime minister to take part in the race. Hamon now has a significant chance of winning the second and final round between the two men to be held next Sunday. But whatever the result, the deeply divided Socialist Party faces implosion. Mathieu Magnaudeix and Christophe Gueugneau followed the two camps as the results unfolded during Sunday evening.
Last Thursday the seven candidates in the Socialist Party's primary to choose a presidential candidate took part in the first of three televised debates. Mediapart joined a group of party members watching the first debate at Roubaix near Lille in northern France, which is historically one of the staunchest of socialist strongholds in France. As Amélie Poinssot discovered, many grassroots activists are still hopeful the party can be rebuilt despite the massive disappointment of François Hollande's presidency.
An activist has gone on trial in a town in south-west France for having “requisitioned” some chairs from a bank. Jon Palais and others took the chairs as part of a wider protest against tax evasion and the use of tax havens which costs France billions of euros a year. The bank in question, BNP Paribas, took exception to the protest and made a formal complaint over their “stolen” chairs. But as Dan Israel reports, the legal complaint backfired as Palais and his supporters turned the trial into a media event in which the bank's own actions were held up to scrutiny.
A former top French civil servant told the judges in the trial of IMF boss Christine Lagarde how he had tried to meet the then-economy minister to stop her from agreeing to an arbitration process that eventually cost French taxpayers 403 million euros. Ex-Treasury official Bruno Bézard said not only was holding the arbitration in the first place a blunder, it had been a mistake not to have appealed against its 2008 ruling in favour of tycoon Bernard Tapie. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan says it was a tough day in court for Lagarde, who denies negligence in signing off on the arbitration process while a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has appeared before a special court in Paris charged with negligence over her handling of a controversial arbitration process that paid out millions of euros of French taxpayers' money. Addressing a court reserved for government ministers, the former French economy minister denied wrongdoing but suggested she herself may have been “exploited” by others in relation to the 403 million euro award made to French tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2008. Mediapart's legal affairs correspondent Michel Deléan reports.
Mediapart was present at a public meeting at Nanterre, west of Paris, to discuss the forthcoming presidential election when the news broke that President François Hollande would not be standing for re-election in that contest. Many of those present in the hall were supporters of the Left who had voted for Hollande at the 2012 election. Some were quick to voice their dismay at his presidency's record, while the majority expressed general indifference and the meeting quickly resumed. As Mathieu Magnaudeix reports, it was a sign of just how irrelevant the president had already become to many ordinary voters.
The usually tranquil village of Allex, in the Drôme Valley region of south-east France, has become agitated over the imminent opening of a reception centre for migrants. Villagers’ opposition to the centre, which will house about 50 individuals, has prompted the mayor to announce a referendum on the issue. Laurent Geslin reports from this small village of 2,500 inhabitants where, as France’s 2017 presidential election campaign draws closer, local conservative and far-right parties have jumped upon the opportunity to stoke the fires of prejudice and resentment.
The death earlier this month of a Chinese man after he was assaulted in the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers has sparked furious protests from the local Chinese and South-East Asian populations, which are increasingly the target of gratuitous violence and robberies by gangs of youths fof other ethnic origins. The authorities and the media have largely ignored the racist attacks against the Chinese community, which has now begun to set up its own self-defence groups. Aurélie Delmas reports from Aubervilliers where the mayor warns of a powder-keg situation.
For the past ten years, a European Union-funded mission in the West Bank is training the Palestinian police in modern policing methods. With police instructors from EU member states, the EUPOL COPPS mission is aimed at building an effective police force ahead of the possible creation of a Palestinian state. But the challenges are vast, and the programme’s future is uncertain. Mediapart correspondent Chloé Demoulin reports from the West Bank mission, beginning with the unusual scene of a lesson by French riot police on how to disperse a peaceful sit-in.
