Diplomatic tour to Europe by Libyan military strongman's son ends in fiasco

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Photos from Siddiq Haftar's diplomatic tour. © Photomontage Mediapart avec Abaca Photos from Siddiq Haftar's diplomatic tour. © Photomontage Mediapart avec Abaca

In recent months Siddiq Haftar, the eldest son of Libyan military strongman and suspected war criminal Khalifa Haftar, has been seeking to establish his international credentials as he eyes a possible bid to be his country's president one day. One of his ambitions was to be greeted in style at the European Parliament, and he duly visited the institution in September. But, as Mediapart reveals, the visit, led by a media-friendly imam and a far-right Member of the European Parliament, turned to fiasco. Yann Philippin and Antton Rouget report.

The massacre in Gaza: why inaction is a crime

Inhabitants of Gaza a day after the Israeli bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp on November 1st. © Photo : Bashar Taleb / AFP Inhabitants of Gaza a day after the Israeli bombing of the Jabaliya refugee camp on November 1st. © Photo : Bashar Taleb / AFP

The people of Gaza are being engulfed by rivers of blood. And part of our humanity is being swept away with them, write Mediapart's Joseph Confavreux and Carine Fouteau in this op-ed article. There is an urgent need for compassion, public pressure and politics, they say, to halt the deaths of civilians - including many children.

French spy agency's concerns over links between far-right Rassemblement National members and Russia

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Thierry Mariani and Marine Le Pen at a meeting to launch the far-right RN's European election campaign in Paris, January 13th 2019. © Photo Alain Robert / SIPA Thierry Mariani and Marine Le Pen at a meeting to launch the far-right RN's European election campaign in Paris, January 13th 2019. © Photo Alain Robert / SIPA

In 2019 a report from the French domestic intelligence agency the DGSI listed the “influential intermediaries” that were used by Russia in France during the run up to the European elections. The only four French political figures cited in this document were current or past members of Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (RN). Among them was an Franco-Russian RN adviser at the European Parliament. Matthieu Suc and Marine Turchi report.

How Martinique's creole language has become a symbol of liberation

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The local flag featured in a demonstration against the use of the pesticide chlordecone, Fort-de-France, 2022. © Photo Julien Sartre pour Mediapart The local flag featured in a demonstration against the use of the pesticide chlordecone, Fort-de-France, 2022. © Photo Julien Sartre pour Mediapart

Supporters of independence for France's overseas département of Martinique believe that having their own 'official language' and flag is a way of rediscovering their culture. In this respect the Caribbean island's capital Fort-de-France sees itself as being on the cutting edge when it comes to identity issues. Julien Sartre reports on attempts to win greater autonomy for the island.

How French billionaire François-Henri Pinault hid his ecocidal use of private jet

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François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of the Kering group. © Photo Ludovic Marin / AFP François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of the Kering group. © Photo Ludovic Marin / AFP

Billionaire French businessman François-Henri Pinault has a taste for jetting around in his private Bombardier plane. As a result, he became one of the happy few named and shamed for their disproportionate contribution to climate change by spewing thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from their private jets. Pinault, whose luxury group Kering boasts of its green credentials, changed the registration details of his aircraft to disappear from the public radar. But the French collective association Mémoire vive found the re-registered plane, and details of its journeys. Mickaël Correia reports.

 

Alain Gresh: the ‘silent turning point’ in France’s diplomatic strategy towards Israel

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Turning points: Jacques Chirac with Yasser Arafat (left), and Nicolas Sarkozy with Ehud Olmert. © Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP Turning points: Jacques Chirac with Yasser Arafat (left), and Nicolas Sarkozy with Ehud Olmert. © Photomontage Mediapart avec AFP

French journalist Alain Gresh is a veteran specialist in Middle East affairs, and notably the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A former editor of the monthly review Le Monde diplomatique, Gresh is now editor-in-chief of Orient XXI, an online magazine focussing on the Arab world. In an updated book re-published this month, amid the horrific events in Israel and Gaza, he recounts the history of France’s strategy towards the Israel-Palestine conflict over the past 50 years. In this interview with Mediapart, he analyses the decline of France’s diplomatic status in the Middle East, its realignment with the US approach to the region after decades as an independent broker, and warns of a now widening gulf between France and the Arab world.

The moral issue behind the Israel-Palestine conflict

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People in Gaza search for victims amid the debris of a building hit by an Israeli strike on Khan Younis in the Gaza, October 14th 2023. © Photo Yasser Qudih / Xinhua / Sipa People in Gaza search for victims amid the debris of a building hit by an Israeli strike on Khan Younis in the Gaza, October 14th 2023. © Photo Yasser Qudih / Xinhua / Sipa

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict presents a moral issue of universal importance, that of the equality of rights, says Mediapart publishing editor Edwy Plenel in this op-ed article. In parallel to Israel’s international legitimacy is a denial of the rights of Palestinians. Alarmed spectators, we discover the horror of the Hamas terrorist attack and the killing of Israeli civilians, and follow the slaughter, under the bombs of the Israeli military, of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. All these human lives have the same value, the same cost, he writes, and we cannot accept this escalade of terror in which the crimes of one camp supposedly justify the crimes of another.

Journalist Mortaza Behboudi back in France after 284 days in Taliban jails

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Mortaza Behboudi with his wife Aleksandra Mostovaja moments after he arrived in Paris on October 20th. © Photo Rachida El Azzouzi / Mediapart Mortaza Behboudi with his wife Aleksandra Mostovaja moments after he arrived in Paris on October 20th. © Photo Rachida El Azzouzi / Mediapart

Journalist Mortaza Behboudi arrived back in France on Friday after being held prisoner in Afghanistan for 284 days. “My crime is to have given a voice to Afghan women and men,” says the 29-year-old, who holds dual French and Afghan nationality. Based in France, he has worked on numerous reports from Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, for Mediapart and other French media. He notably teamed up last year with Mediapart’s Rachida El Azzouzi in a series of reports from the country. Here she tells the story of his ordeal, including torture, following his arrest on January 7th by the Taliban regime’s feared General Directorate of Intelligence.

French teacher murder: the conundrum of making schools more secure against attacks

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 © Photo Franck Fernandes / Nice Matin / PhotoPQR via MaxPPP © Photo Franck Fernandes / Nice Matin / PhotoPQR via MaxPPP

The murder of a teacher, and the serious wounding of three other staff in an apparent terrorist knife attack at a secondary school the north-east French town of Arras on October 13th has prompted intense debate on how to improve security in schools in France. It has heightened concern over a series of violent incidents at schools in recent years, including the stabbing murder and decapitation in 2020 of a teacher in a Paris suburb, also in a terrorist attack. Teachers’ unions have warned against proposed measures that would turn schools into fortresses, while existing security arrangements, such as alarms and fencing, have for long been left in disrepair. Education correspondent Mathilde Goanec reports.        

How French schoolteacher killer went on attack despite anti-terror agency surveillance

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Police outside the Gambetta-Carnot secondary school in Arras, north-east France, on October 13th. © Photo Denis Charlet / AFP Police outside the Gambetta-Carnot secondary school in Arras, north-east France, on October 13th. © Photo Denis Charlet / AFP

Several thousand people gathered in the north-east French town of Arras on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of the knife attack at a local school on Friday which left a schoolteacher dead and three of his colleagues seriously wounded. The attacker, a 20-year-old man originally from the Russian Federation’s Caucasus region who arrived in France with his family in 2008, had been the subject of surveillance by France’s domestic intelligence agency, the DGSI, who considered him a potential danger for his apparent affiliation with radical Islamism. But his intention to commit an imminent attack was not identified. Matthieu Suc reports on the reasons behind the failure, and several similar previous cases in France that highlight the difficulties of intelligence services in preventing terrorist attacks.

French weekly Le Canard enchaîné seeks minister’s help in sacking one of its investigative journalists

 © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart © Photo Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

One of France’s oldest existing French press titles, the satirical and investigative weekly Le Canard enchaîné built a reputation as a fearless, irreverent and anti-establishment journal which has recurrently shaken the country’s political class. But it has now turned to the government to validate the disputed dismissal of one of its investigative journalists, following his revelations of a scandal within the weekly itself. Fabrice Arfi, Yunnes Abzouz and Karl Laske report.

Why Nicolas Sarkozy faces judicial probe over fake retraction by witness Ziad Takieddine

 © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart © Photo illustration Sébastien Calvet / Mediapart

After a marathon four days of questioning last week, the former president of the Republic was formally placed under investigation for being the “beneficiary of witness tampering” and for “criminal conspiracy”. The investigation in question is into a fake retraction by intermediary Ziad Takieddine, a witness in the scandal concerning alleged Libyan funding of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign. Fabrice Arfi, Karl Laske and Antton Rouget report.

Predator Files: surveillance kit for dictatorships with the collusion of France's DGSE secret service

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 © Illustration Simon Toupet / Mediapart © Illustration Simon Toupet / Mediapart

The Predator Files investigation has revealed how the French external intelligence agency, the DGSE, cooperated very closely with the surveillance equipment firm Nexa. This is despite the fact that the French group was suspected by French prosecutors of being complicit in torture by exporting its products to dictatorial regimes. Nexa's clients have also included several French ministries and a number of the country's intelligence agencies. Yann Philippin and Matthieu Suc report.

Rules on French police use of rubber bullets loosened despite life-changing injuries

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A police officer aims an LBD rubber projectile gun at a ‘yellow vest’ demonstration in Paris in January 2019. © Photo Ludovic Marin / AFP A police officer aims an LBD rubber projectile gun at a ‘yellow vest’ demonstration in Paris in January 2019. © Photo Ludovic Marin / AFP

Over the past five years in France, one person has died and at least 35 others have been wounded, many seriously, by the hard rubber projectiles fired from supposedly non-lethal “defence” guns, called LBDs, used by police on crowd-control missions. While LBDs have left demonstrators and bystanders with shocking life-changing wounds, including the irreversible blinding of eyes and skull fractures, Mediapart has discovered that the rules surrounding the minimum distance between police officers using the weapon and their target have been loosened. Pascale Pascariello reports.

Predator Files: President Macron, Alexandre Benalla and a French firm's attempts to sell spyware to Saudi Arabia

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 © Illustration Simon Toupet / Mediapart © Illustration Simon Toupet / Mediapart

Mediapart is part of an international investigation called 'Predator Files' which has revealed how French group Nexa sold the spy software 'Predator' to three autocratic regimes. The same media investigation shows that, after making direct contact with President Emmanuel Macron, the company used his former bodyguard and personal security adviser Alexandre Benalla to try to sell spyware to Saudi Arabia. This was despite the murder of Saudi regime critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Yet 18 months after these deeply embarrassing facts for the Élysée were unearthed, a judicial investigation has stalled. Yann Philippin and Antton Rouget report.