Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who on Tuesday began serving a five-year prison term for criminal conspiracy to gain funding for his 2007 election campaign from the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is receiving 24-hour protection by two armed police officers occupying a neighbouring cell at La Santé prison in Paris, it has been revealed. Michel Deléan reports on the controversial and unprecedented measure.
At just before 9.40am on October 21st Nicolas Sarkozy entered the gates of La Santé prison in Paris to begin the five-year jail term he was given after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in the Libyan election funding scandal, a first for a former French president. But current president Emmanuel Macron received Sarkozy at the Élysée while justice minister Gérald Darmanin has said he will visit him in prison. And French business groups Accor and Lagardère groups have rallied to his support, while television channels have largely glossed over the seriousness of the offences. As Fabrice Arfi argues in this op-ed article, the jailing of Nicolas Sarkozy lays bare, as never before, the panic of a small but powerful elite that desires nothing less than the return of pre-French Revolution privilege.
A meticulous study into Russian losses in Ukraine published this month by exiled Russian media outlets reports that since the Kremlin launched what it called a “special military operation” against its neighbour in February 2022, the number of deaths it was able to verify among the Russian military amount to 135,000. But it also estimates the probable number of Russian fatalities over the same period at 219,000. Justine Brabant reports.
The film co-produced by Mediapart, now available through VOD.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu (pictured) and his new government have survived two motions of no confidence tabled in parliament on Thursday, after the socialists abstained from the voting in exchange for Lecornu’s pledge to freeze the unpopular 2023 pension reform legislation until future presidential elections. While the prime minister is now able to proceed with the much delayed 2026 budget bill, and which will be the subject of fierce debates, the position of the socialists has opened up a bitter feud with its leftwing coalition partners.
A group of 16 prominent organisations active in the defence of human rights in general, and those of migrants in particular, have launched a legal challenge in France against the so-called “one in, one out” treaty agreed this summer between London and Paris for the return to France of migrants arriving illegally in England by small boats crossing the Channel. The challenge is a submission before the France’s Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, which argues that the application of the treaty in France is in contravention of the constitution, and notably because it was never ratified by parliament. Nejma Brahim reports.
One week after the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, and the collapse of his government, President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed Lecornu to lead what is now the fourth minority government since snap elections last year created a hung parliament. As outlined here, its composition, far from being what the presidential office promised as a “rupture” with the past, is largely made up of Macron loyalists and revenants. The bets are already on it being overturned this week in parliament, its future hanging on a decision by the socialists whether or not to support a no-confidence vote.
The Garden and the Jungle How the West Sees the World
Edwy Plenel’s far-ranging critique of Europe’s betrayal of universal values and equal rights as war and right-wing populism spread worldwide.
French President Emmanuel Macron has reappointed his close ally Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister, just five days after the latter resigned from the post. The future of his minority government, the fourth since the results of snap parliamentary elections called by Macron last year, already seems seriously compromised, with a no-confidence vote already expected in prliament. In this op-ed piece, Mediapart political correspondent Ilyes Ramdani argues that Macron’s dogged determination to repeatedly establish a government in his political image, to the exclusion of the leftwing alliance which emerged victorious in last year’s election, is leading France to the cliff face, and that even his own camp are questioning his intransigent behaviour.
A Mediapart investigation has revealed that at least nine men convicted of, or awaiting trial for, far-right terrorism-related offences in France have either held positions of responsibility within Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National - or its predecessor the Front National - or have stood as party candidates in local and national elections. It is the only French political party with such links to these kinds of cases.
In an interview with Mediapart, former Israeli prime minister and ex-chief of general staff of the country's military, Ehud Barak, details his view of the so-called Trump plan for an end to the war in Gaza, argues why Benjamin Netanyahu must go, why both sides in the conflict must compromise, and why the only conclusion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies in a two-state solution.
France's prime minister Sébastien Lecornu handed in his resignation on Monday morning just a few hours after announcing his team of government ministers. Caught off-guard by Lecornu's surprise action – he was only appointed as head of government by President Emmanuel Macron on September 9th - the country's various political parties have been holding crisis meetings to work out their strategy. Cornered politically, the president later gave Sébastien Lecornu two extra days to hold “final talks” with the Right and grant the executive a further reprieve. And to save his own presidency.
