Catalog

They’re bankers, traders, or investment funds executives. Frauds, lies, cons: they forgot all about morality to make money. The entire world had to suffer the consequences of their actions. They impoverished countries, drove millions of workers into unemployment, triggered the rise in extremism. Then, who are they? This is a story about money, power and impunity. Ten years after the...

Why would someone confess to a crime they didn’t commit? In America, nearly 30% of those exonerated by DNA tests had previously confessed. For more than half a century, the Reid technique was the favored method of extracting confessions out of suspects. This method of slowly building pressure often made it seem that admitting guilt was the easiest way out. But now, a number of police forces...

With their beautiful shopfronts and finely crafted goods, brands like Gucci, Max Mara, Louis Vuitton and Prada are seen as being the height of luxury, conjuring images of master craftsmen finely crafting each item. But - as this investigation reveals - behind the glamorous exterior, all that glitters is not gold. In the world of luxury goods, leather means record-breaking profits. For brands...

Every second, another ten tons of plastic is produced. 10% of all plastic produced ends up in the oceans, leading to predictions that, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. Faced with this global scourge, more and more businesses are promising to recycle, including the Coca-Cola Company, a group that sells 4000 plastic bottles around the world every second. Can we depend...

One company has achieved an amazing tour de force: turn coffee, the most mundane soft-drink, into a magical potion. A beverage sold a fortune that changes you into a sophisticated human being. That gives you the illusion that you make a difference. And let you believe that you are – for a moment – above others. This company is Starbucks. One American entrepreneur has understood how high a...

On 16th October 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack close to her home. Her career focused on investigative reporting into government corruption and money laundering, and all of her findings were published on her personal blog Running Commentary. Attracting over 400,000 views per day, her blog was read more than all of the country’s...

  Acclaimed journalist Paul Moreira investigates how Russia manipulates public opinion, undermines democratic governments and attempts to alter world events. The public face of foreign policy: the state news channels, Sputnik and Russia Today. But working in the shadows is the hidden part: the hackers and trolls pushing the Russian agenda… The Russians know that public perception...

This is the story of a personal and universal quest : is it still possible to eat animals respecting their well-being, the planet and our health? While becoming a father for the first time, the investigative journalist Benoît Bringer (Pulitzer Prize with the Panama Papers’ team) questions what we give our children to eat. To feed a growing population, the world has embarked on a race to...

Children as young as three are becoming addicted to mobile phones, harming their development and causing possible long-term damage. We follow some of the youngest cases and hear how our brains are affected by exposure to screens. We also learn how platforms like snapchat or facebook are engineered to make them hyper-addictive. Three year old Ryan doesn’t speak, avoids eye contact and...

It’s the soft, natural fabric associated with high quality and versatility. Used to make everything from jeans and t-shirts to tarpaulins, oil and cattle feed, it powers a 37 billion euros a year industry. But is cotton really as pure as it seems? Claims of forced labour, pollution, and even slavery have stained its wholesome reputation, creating a market for ’ethical, responsible’...

An 8 month long international investigation exposed the Paradise Papers. With 13.5 million documents, it’s the biggest leak in history. The majority come from one of the biggest names in the offshore world: the Bermuda-based Appleby law firm. Along with 400 journalists from around the world, we dissected the packages prepared for Appleby’s clients, who are either wealthy individuals...

VIDEO TEASER IN ENGLISH - Elise Lucet from France 2 and Laurent Richard from Premières Lignes are being sued by the country of Azerbaidjan for defamation in a French Court for describing the oil-rich state as a "dictatorship". This trial in France could set an important precedent for foreing governments exporting their censorship beyond their borders, to curb freedom of the press.   See...

When 15 – 30% of the timber sold worldwide is thought to be illegal, how sustainable is the wood used in Ikea’s products? The company claims it only uses responsibly-sourced materials but - as this investigation reveals - some of their sub-contractors are pillaging Romania’s ancient forests. In Indonesia, APP plantations have caused widespread pollution. This investigation, filmed in...

Secret internal documents reveal how Church officials protect priests accused of pedophilia by moving them from country to country, sometimes as far away as Africa. They call it ‘the geographical solution’. Even Pope Francis is implicated. When he was bishop of Buenos Aires, he tried to influence the Argentinean justice system in order to protect a convicted priest. From Cameroon to...

For the past 12 years, journalist Paul Moreira has travelled extensively in Iraq. In this personal film, he goes in search of the men he filmed back in 2003, at the very beginning of the American occupation. Through their stories, and by tracing the roots of ISIS to the arrival of Abu Mousab Al-Zarqawi and America’s handling of the resistance, he tells the story of how Iraq became such a...

How has the moderate and democratic Syrian revolution been taken over by Jihadists? Paul Moreira meets with a group of fighters from the Free Syrian Army, whom he previously filmed in 2011, to answer this question. This group of friends come from a region close to Edlib, and were rallied together by Jamal Maarouf, also featured in the documentary. They have all left the country. Now, they speak...

Benoit Bringer and Edouard Perrin (photo), Premieres Lignes investigative reporters, have been awarded the Pulitzer Price for their collaborative work on the Panama Papers investigation, along with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Columbia University announced on April 10, 2017 that the Panama Papers investigation has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory...

This exclusive film reveals exactly why a coalition of 26 international powers, overseen by the United States, has yet to overthrow 30,000 Isis jihadists. By investigating the supply lines of firearms and weapons to ISIS, it sheds new light on the connections between Isis and Turkey. Journalist Laurent Richard also investigates the goings on behind the scenes of certain CIA-led clandestine...