This is a timely intervention. The day our impact report was published, an MP questioned the government on “the appointment and absenteeism of senior civil servants” based on the work of several media outlets, including Mediacités.
In his written question to the Minister of the Civil Service, which is part of the parliamentary debate on the government’s 2025 budget, François Piquemal, LFI representative of the fourth constituency of Haute‐Garonne, expresses his doubts about “the reality of the work carried out” by a personality “appointed to the General Economic and Financial Control of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (CGefi) by Mr. Sarkozy”, in 2008. Citing “several journalistic investigations”, François Piquemal aims without naming him Jean‐Luc Moudenc, whose Mediacités and others (France 3 Occitanie, in particular) have documented the intriguing accumulation of jobs.
A contribution to the national and local debate, which is fully in line with the “useful journalism” to which Mediacités has subscribed since its founding manifesto. “Useful”, certainly, but useful how? It is to answer this question that we have produced our “impact report” every year for the past four years.
As in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, we reviewed the 177 articles written over twelve months (from November 2023 to October 2024) for the Toulouse edition, asking ourselves if they had contributed to moving the lines. Here is the result of this new look in the rearview mirror.
Has justice taken up our revelations?
And no. Of the thirty investigations published in recent months, none has resulted in the opening of legal proceedings in Toulouse. Should we see in this the inability of Mediacités to repeat the Cugnaux coup? The publication of a series of articles on this municipality at the end of 2019 convinced the Toulouse public prosecutor’s office to launch a preliminary investigation for illegal taking of interests, passive influence peddling, passive corruption and money laundering and concealment of illegal taking of interests against Roger Montibert, the former deputy for town planning. A file on which we are keeping a close eye.
Since then, nothing. There is a good reason for this observation: we often launch our investigations when a complaint has already been filed. Since justice is sought first, our investigations can – at best – provide new information on the cases concerned. Even if sometimes, they help to speed up the legal process.
Moving the lines
If we have not moved the justice system this year, we have encouraged the Catholic Church to put aside some black sheep. In September 2023, a priest from Lot was removed, after our revelations about his conviction – kept secret by the bishopric – for sexual abuse of a minor. He has since worked in the archives of the Diocese.
Rebelote last March in the same department. This time, it was a young woman who testified in our columns about the rapes allegedly imposed on her by another priest from Lot. These facts are also known to the diocese, without it having taken its accusations seriously. Once again, the scandal had to become public for the priest to be removed from his parish while the preliminary investigation came to an end.
The complainant will not have a legal response for several years, but her testimony allowed her to get rid of a heavy secret. “The publication takes a weight off me, it gives me the impression of having been in therapy for a year,” she told us, strengthened by the numerous messages of support received in the meantime.
Improve public service
The journalistic impact is not limited to the legal field. This year, Mediacités enabled a public service much appreciated by the population to improve its practices. Thus, after the publication of our investigation into the poor response times and the lack of resources of the emergency services in Haute‐Garonne, the fire director recognized the usefulness of our work. The Mediacités investigation made it aware that the statistics that its services had been providing to the Ministry of the Interior for six years were incorrect.
After correcting the situation, it turns out that the average response time would in fact be around 15 minutes and 30 minutes in 2023. Five minutes better than what previous data concluded! However, this is not enough to bring Haute‐Garonne out of the back of the rankings, because this figure remains more than three minutes higher than the average for Sdis in the same category.
When Mediacités allows Sdis31 to improve
Save money
Our information sometimes also allows us to avoid some unnecessary expenses. This summer, Mediacités got its hands on the project to reorganize the workspace of Sébastien Vincini, the president of the Haute‐Garonne departmental council. This project, worth a total of more than 85,000 euros, raised questions, given the budgetary constraints weighing on departmental finances and the drastic reduction in subsidies to associations.
Questioned by Mediacités before the publication of the survey, the community conveniently recalled these financial difficulties to affirm that part of the work had been canceled. A late realization, because the project was still on track a few weeks earlier, but saving – although symbolic – given the state of public finances
Daybed, armchairs and designer lamps: the comfort desires of the president of the Haute‐Garonne departmental council
Encourage associations to review their governance
Our revelations also make it possible to improve the functioning of certain structures. The induction, during the last general assembly of the Maison du Vélo, of two new members to the board of directors, with no apparent link to the association and close to the Socialist Party, caused astonishment.
As Mediacités has documented, it is above all the operating mode which posed a problem for many volunteers and employees of the emblematic Toulouse association: the joining of around forty members a few minutes before the start of the AG, and the change of agenda allowing the vote to be brought forward at the very beginning of the session, thereby preventing several people from speaking… All of this, orchestrated by the two historic leaders of the Maison du Vélo.
Since our investigation, a few lines have moved. Is this directly linked to the upcoming publication of our article? Even before it was online, we learned of the resignation of Louise Foutrel, one of the new members of the Board of Directors, also treasurer of the Young Socialists 31. She had not participated in any board of directors since the meeting general. It was the candidate who came in third place in the vote, and already active within the association in the participatory workshops, who took her place.
Following the criticized AGM, many volunteers and employees asked to review the statutes of their association. Seven board meetings later, the defenders of this reform have not won their case. But the work is progressing. An internal regulation will emerge. “It will make it possible in particular to amend the statutes and prevent a new member from being able to vote upon arrival in the association. But we will have to wait for the future general assembly and there is a lot of resistance among certain members of the CA to completely change the statutes. It is the leaders who keep control, and we have the impression that it remains a private preserve,” sighs one of the witnesses to our investigation.
Our investigation had another direct consequence: Toulouse Métropole has decided to now monitor a little more carefully what is happening within the cyclists’ association. The community, which subsidizes the Maison du Vélo to the tune of 230,000 euros, has in fact asked to join the board of directors, “if a reflection on the governance of the association begins”.
Adverse effects
Our impact report also pushes us to humility. Beyond less significant repercussions than expected, the publication of our surveys is sometimes followed by negative repercussions. The 29-year-old young woman, cited above, had to undergo a psychological assessment and two psychiatric assessments after the publication of her testimony in Mediacités. These optional procedures for complainants have been ordered by the Cahors Public Prosecutor’s Office since last March.
Another witness suffered pressure from the structure whose errors she denounced. Thus, the whistleblower on mistreatment within the Ehpad l’Ecuyer had to endure the legal counter‐attack from the DomusVi group, to which the establishment depends. He sued her to recover the clandestine recordings which had allowed him to denounce the abuse suffered by his father. DomusVi then wanted to withdraw the protection mandate that his father had entrusted to him. In both cases, the requests were rejected by the courts. But the stress generated for the said person is very real.
Testifying is an act of courage. We thank those who dared to do so in our columns in 2024 and those who will take the plunge in the future.
