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French minister admits to offshore account

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11th Apr 2013
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The French budget minister has been “moving every two days” to avoid paparazzi after he resigned for having an undeclared offshore bank account.

Jerome Cahuzac (pictured right) admitted to hiding €600,000 in an offshore account and lying about it, in the biggest scandal of socialist president Francois Hollande's term of office. 

The admission shook Hollande's government and forced the resignation of Cahuzac, who headed the socialists' fight against tax evasion, until his resignation on 19 March.

In the first interview since his admission, Cahuzac told French magazine La Depeche he no longer speaks to the media and is being hounded by paparazzi.

“I moved every two days to escape the pressure,” he said and didn’t deny claims that he slept in his car.

Since the revelations about its budget minister, the French government has introduced a raft of measures to tackle tax evasion.

In a statement on its website, the government said the new rules would “ensure transparency in public life and reinforce the fight against serious economic and financial crimes and tax havens”.

The proposals include a new independent administrative authority to examine the financial affairs of officials, a central office to fight fraud and French banks having to annually publish a list of their subsidiaries around the world and “the nature of their activities”.

The bill will be presented to the French council of ministers on 24 April.

Recently, finance ministers of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain signed an information exchange agreement in a bid to tackle tax evasion.

The former minister hasn’t ruled out returning to French parliament yet, as under a 2008 reform, a minister who leaves government can get his seat back in the lower house within a month.

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