d-intl.comhttp://www.d-intl.com/french-budget-minister-caught-dodging-taxes/
French Budget Minister caught dodging taxes
President Hollande’s government of exemplary virtue shattered
PARIS. One week after President Hollande spoke to the nation in a tepid sleep-inducing TV interview, a sort of fireside chat without a hearth, the Jérôme Cahuzac scandal exploded in his face, shattering his pretentions to govern with exemplary virtue. The disgraced Budget Minister, working under the authority of Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and responsible for tracking tax evaders, does in fact have an undeclared account in a tax haven. The scandal was revealed on December 4th by Mediapart, a hard-hitting online newspaper to the left of the left, that digs up the truth and delivers it in strong righteous doses … available only to paid subscribers. Why did it take the Hollande government four months to confirm the rumor and rid itself of the offender? Commentators are tossing a coin to see if it comes up ineptitude or attempted cover up. It may be both.
Jérôme Cahuzac was a handsome young cardiac surgeon in 1988 when he was appointed head of the pharmaceutical division in the Health Ministry of the Mitterand government. After his first stint in politics he became a consultant to drug companies. He opened the Swiss bank account in 1992—the socialist Mitterand was still president—using as straw man a tax lawyer who is a friend of National Front leader Marine Le Pen.
In association with his wife, also an M.D. (divorce proceedings are currently underway), Cahuzac opened a hair transplant clinic while pursuing his political career. He campaigned with the socialist Lionel Jospin in 1995, was parachuted to Villeneuve-sur-Lot and elected deputy in 1997, voted out in 2002, re-elected in 2007, and has served as mayor of the town since 2002. After heading up the Finance Commission of the National Assembly under the previous administration, Cahuzac was brought into the squeaky clean government of François Hollande. He was known for rigorous, sometimes harsh budget management and relentless pursuit of tax dodgers. Making the rich pay their fair share is the very foundation of the Hollande government. The failed attempt to impose a 75 percent tax on yearly individual income over a million euros was glorified as a call for “fiscal patriotism”.
For the past four months Cahuzac has been vehemently denying the Mediapart accusation: face to face with his fellow cabinet ministers and the President, publicly to the media and Parliament. When the lumbering official investigation finally confirmed the tax evasion, Cahuzac confessed and resigned. He was excommunicated from the Socialist Party and enclosed within a sky-high firewall as calls arose for new elections (from the National Front’s Marine Le Pen), resignation of the PM and formation of a new government (Jean-François Copé, head of the UMP), dissolution of the entire operation and creation of a 6th République (Jean-Luc Melenchon of the Front de Gauche).