The publication Monday of the estate holdings of the 38 cabinet members of the French government, however, was a veritable event, a moment of unprecedented transparency in France that was anticipated by politicians with dread, pleasure or disgust, but rarely indifference.
Officials on the left and the right deemed it a dangerous exercise in voyeurism, while others lauded it as an inevitable, democratic step. But there was broad agreement that in France, where a politician’s right to privacy in matters financial (and amorous) has long been considered a sacred principle of public life, and where money remains an uncouth topic for polite conversation, the disclosures were uncomfortable and quite novel for the ruling class.
Ordered by President François Hollande, the public declarations are among several measures intended to “moralize” French politics after the admission by his former budget minister, Jérôme Cahuzac, that he had maintained an undeclared and well-padded bank account in Switzerland.
Mr. Cahuzac resigned last month, though not before repeatedly and angrily proclaiming his innocence.
“Transparency!” Mr. Hollande vowed in a televised address last week. “This is not about exhibiting, this is not about undermining,” he said. Rather, the disclosures are meant to reassure citizens that “those who are responsible for the public coffers” do not see “an accumulation of wealth” while in office.
French financial disclosure requirements are among the most lax in Europe.
With a bill to be introduced this month, Mr. Hollande intends to make it mandatory for senior government officials and aides, parliamentarians and some local officials to disclose estate holdings, which include real estate, furniture and vehicles, as well as bank and investment accounts. Officials will not, however, be required to make public their current tax filings, which in some cases show significant salaries.
The declarations released Monday evening showed some cabinet members to be near the French median — determined by a state agency in 2010 to be 113,500 euros or about $150,000 — but many were well above. A handful of the officials had chosen to disclose their holdings in advance, some to prove they had nothing to hide, others to reveal their wealth with time to explain.
With the economy stagnant, unemployment high and taxes rising, there were strong concerns about angry reactions among the public.
In the Monday edition of the newspaper Sud-Ouest, Michèle Delaunay, a junior minister and former dermatologist, revealed assets valued at 5.4 million euros (about $7 million), a number she said she feared would be “difficult to understand for the majority of the French.”
Laurent Fabius, who in addition to serving as foreign minister is the grandson of an important early-20th-century art dealer, kept mum about his holdings until Monday evening, when he revealed assets totaling about 6 million euros (about $7.8 million).
Some tried to defuse tensions with self-derision.
“I have a T-shirt from David Beckham, so I think I need to put that in my estate declaration,” Aurélie Filippetti, the culture minister, told France 2 television last week, while insisting that her 71-square-meter Parisian apartment was her sole possession of consequence. (The apartment was valued at 710,000 euros — about $925,000 — in her declaration Monday. She also disclosed about 11,000 euros, or $14,400, in the bank and 314,000 euros, or about $410,000, in debt; the T-shirt was not listed.)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a fixture on the far left but not a member of the government, volunteered on his blog that he owned an apartment in Paris (purchased for 346,750 euros, about $453,000), a country house (purchased in 1996 for the equivalent of $120,000), and savings of 150,000 euros, or about $196,000. First, however, he noted: “I measure 1.74 meters tall. I weigh 79 kilos.”
Mr. Mélenchon went on to list his waist measurement and shoe size, and to note that his hair is “natural” and “not dyed.” He is also looking for a larger apartment, he said, and thanked “those who can make me a good offer.”
Mr. Mélenchon and other critics have noted that it seems unlikely the disclosures could have caught Mr. Cahuzac, especially because they were not accompanied by an enforcement mechanism, at least not yet.
If a disclosure is not independently verified, “it’s worth nothing,” said Jean-François Copé, the president the Union for a Popular Movement, the center-right political party that is the primary opposition to Mr. Hollande’s Socialist Party.
Mr. Copé accused Mr. Hollande of diverting attention from more serious matters. “Poor France!” he lamented on French television. “With the acceleration of deficits, the acceleration of unemployment, with the necessity of making important reforms, what is the debate of the day? To know how to make a Richter scale of ministers more or less rich?”
Mr. Copé, who works as a corporate lawyer when he is not serving as party leader, in addition to holding positions as a mayor and a member of Parliament, has said he will not publish an accounting of his assets unless legally obligated.
The disclosure requirements were opposed within Mr. Hollande’s party as well.
“To declare, to verify, to punish, this is transparency,” Claude Bartolone, the Socialist president of the lower house of Parliament, told the newspaper Le Figaro last week. “To render public, this is voyeurism.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/europe/french-cabinent-ministers-disclose-their-financial-worth.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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