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  • Nous pensions que cette organisation était liée à la destruction des forêts. Nous avons eu un tuyau comme quoi la prochaine sur la liste, c’était celle-ci.

I'm having trouble parsing this part of the sentence.

What does "comme quoi" mean in the context?

What are the feminine form "la prochaine" and "celle-ci" refering to?

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Comme quoi is a familiar phrase to introduce a reported speech. To make the sentence clearer, you can replace it by "qui dit que" or "qui affirme que".

Ex:

J'ai entendu une rumeur comme quoi elle avait un amant.

Sa mère a écrit un mot pour son professeur, comme quoi il était trop malade pour assister aux cours.

As to what "la prochaine" and "celle-ci" refer to, it is indeed a bit unclear, I guess you may have to infer that from the context. I would expect it is the forest ? "La prochaine sur la liste" would then mean "la prochaine sur la liste des forêts à détruire".

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  • Depending on the context, la prochaine and celle-ci might also refer to the organization.
    – jlliagre
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 12:59
  • Thank you very much. I translated like this "We have received a tip that the forest they were going after next was the one here". Do you think it's OK? I have a question. The "ce" in "c’était" is refering to "la prochaine sur la liste"?
    – Segwayinto
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 13:00
  • Yes, that sounds OK - or at least if "la prochaine" is indeed "la forêt". As jiliagre said , depending on the context, it may also be "l'organisation".The "ce" is indeed "la prochaine". This is a usual turn of phrase in spoken French, a more formal form (and I guess, easier to parse) would be "la prochaine sur la liste était celle-ci".
    – Greg
    Commented Nov 17, 2017 at 13:06
  • "was this one" and not "the one here".
    – Lambie
    Commented Nov 18, 2017 at 17:10

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