Turning the spotlight on instances of injustice is not enough. It needs to lead to tangible changes. Disclose’s daring ambition since 2018 has been to boost the liberating power of information and restore journalism’s mandate to take action for the sake of democracy, justice and all living organisms.

This is what we, at Disclose, have been doing year after year, and it works: our investigations had a record-breaking impact in 2025. Here are a few examples:

• Our revelations led one of France’s main private universities to drive out far-right billionaire Pierre-Edouard Stérin.
• French-made military equipment was stopped as it was about to be delivered in Israel.
• Sports giant Decathlon had to sever links with a supplier involved in a major forced labour scheme in China.

We identified 559 such repercussions last year. We enjoyed revisiting some of them for our brand new impact report, which is freely accessible:

From investigations to demonstrations

When we, at Disclose, release an investigation, it is only a starting point with a potential chain reaction. Our revelations permeate public debate on social and traditional media, and all the way to Parliament, where they were mentioned 25 times last year. Associations and ordinary people also use them to bring cases to court. Our reports can even lead hundreds of people to take to the streets, as was the case in Marseille in October 2025 to expose the sale of French military equipment in Israel

The impact of our investigations is not down to chance. It reflects the unique work done by our journalists, who often meet up with civil society players months before an investigation is released. These associations and trade unions are the first to be told of our revelations. They can use them as soon as they are out and make sure they lead to tangible changes.

At the forefront of impact journalism

We apply 20 criteria to assess these changes, including online petitions, mentions of our investigations in other outlets and invitations for our journalists to address events. We shared this original method in a guide we created with independent media Rembobine that was released in September 2025.

Ours is a promising approach, witness the success of the Impact Journalism Festival we staged together with Rembobine, also in September 2025. We gave talks at journalism events in Belgium, the UK and as far away as Malaysia.

Disclose has been gaining strength, to the extent that our work has had another consequence: we are being intimidated. The French state is intent on having our journalist Ariane Lavrilleux convicted when it should be acknowledging that the country was complicit in crimes against humanity in Egypt. We have also received threats from multinationals which do not like facts to be reported. The Thales group sued Disclose for defamation after we revealed its business connections with regimes that commit war crimes (Russia, Myanmar, Israel).

In the face of such pressure, there is only one option: we need to keep going and our work must be even more hard-hitting. This is why we issued a call for 2,000 monthly donations by 21 July. Regular donors are the best guarantors of our independence. They ensure that our investigations will have a positive impact for society and all living organisms for many more years.

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Writing: Mathias Destal, Pierre Leibovici
Impact monitoring: Ariane Lavrilleux, Pénélope Blanchetête, Pierre Leibovici and Timothée Vinchon (Rembobine)
Design: Éric Delfosse
Translation from French: Béatrice Murail
Top picture: Frédéric Munsch / SIPA