An Online Upstart Roils French Media, Politics
Every week, it seems, a new scandal unearthed by the upstart, online newspaper Mediapart. The most recent bomb was that President Francois Hollande's budget minister was evading taxes when he was supposed to be cracking down on tax cheats. After vehemently denying the allegations, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Jerome Cahuzac was forced to resign.
Hollande issued an embarrassing national apology while Mediapart kept racking up new subscribers. In its five-year existence, the site has unveiled stories about tax evasion, illegal campaign financing and shady business dealings between government officials and French tycoons.
The cases are now under investigation, including allegations that former President Nicolas Sarkozy took illegal campaign contributions from France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Lillane Bettencourt, and Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.
Edwy Plenel, head of Mediapart, says much of the newspaper's success is due to what he calls the absence of a strong democratic culture in France.
"We have a very big opacity, very secret culture of all the powers, political powers, financial powers," he says. "Mediapart, during the last five years, revealed all the big stories against this culture of secret."
Plenel says the French, unlike the Americans, don't have laws such as the Freedom of Information Act which forces the government to release documents.
Plenel, who once presided over the newspaper Le Monde, founded Mediapart with 5 million euros and a commitment to pay 30 journalists a living salary for three years. He says no one thought the site would survive.
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