Bruno Le Roux, French Interior Minister, Resigns Amid Financial Inquiry
By BENOÎT MORENNE MARCH 21, 2017
Bruno Le Roux, France’s interior minister, announced his resignation at a news conference in Bobigny, France, on Tuesday. Credit Yoan Valat/European Pressphoto Agency
PARIS — France’s interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down, after a financial prosecution office said it was opening a preliminary investigation into parliamentary jobs he gave to his daughters.
Mr. Le Roux said he had done nothing wrong as he announced his resignation at a news conference in Bobigny, northeast of Paris. But, he said, he was resigning so as not to distract from “the daily fight against terrorism, against crime.”
Under French law, it is not illegal for members of Parliament to hire their family members as aides, provided that the work is genuine. It is a common practice, yet it is increasingly perceived as a sign of the widening gap between the political elite and the French people.
A similar scandal has engulfed the campaign of François Fillon, a presidential candidate from the center-right Republican Party, since the end of January, after a satirical newspaper reported that he had hired his wife and children as parliamentary assistants over the years and paid them with public money for possibly bogus jobs.
Mr. Fillon, once considered the front-runner to be the next president, was charged last week with embezzlement. He has plummeted in opinion polls since the scandal and is now lagging behind the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen of the National Front, and the centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is an independent.
Matthias Fekl, 39, will replace Mr. Le Roux as interior minister until April 7. Credit Jacques Demarthon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ms. Le Pen and her party are also facing several investigations, which have not seemed to affect her standing in the polls.
Calls for Mr. Le Roux to step down came from Mr. Fillon’s ranks as well as from within Mr. Le Roux’s party, the Socialists.
“We can’t tell François Fillon, ‘Step down, be an example’ and have the head of a ministry — what’s more, a sovereign one — not apply this to himself,” Benoît Hamon, the Socialist candidate in the presidential election, said at a news conference in Brussels.
Journalists from the French television show “Quotidien” revealed Monday that Mr. Le Roux, a lawmaker from 1997 to 2016, had hired his two daughters as parliamentary assistants from 2009 to 2016, paying them a total of €55,000, or $59,000, for 24 jobs, starting when they were 15 or 16 and still in high school.
According to “Quotidien,” at least two of the jobs overlapped with times when Mr. Le Roux’s daughters were interning abroad or studying. Mr. Le Roux, 51, acknowledged at the news conference that he had hired his daughters during “school and university vacations,” but defended his “honesty,” saying that their jobs had been “specific and official” and had “corresponded to work effectively carried out.”
Matthias Fekl, 39, a junior minister for foreign trade and tourism, will replace Mr. Le Roux until the next president is elected and forms his or her government in May. The interior ministryis responsible for the internal security of the country, and Mr. Fekl will lead it at a time when the country is on high alert with fear of terrorist attacks.
On Saturday, a man was killed in Orly Airport after attacking a soldier in a possible act of terrorism.
By BENOÎT MORENNE MARCH 21, 2017
PARIS — France’s interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down, after a financial prosecution office said it was opening a preliminary investigation into parliamentary jobs he gave to his daughters.
Mr. Le Roux said he had done nothing wrong as he announced his resignation at a news conference in Bobigny, northeast of Paris. But, he said, he was resigning so as not to distract from “the daily fight against terrorism, against crime.”
Under French law, it is not illegal for members of Parliament to hire their family members as aides, provided that the work is genuine. It is a common practice, yet it is increasingly perceived as a sign of the widening gap between the political elite and the French people.
A similar scandal has engulfed the campaign of François Fillon, a presidential candidate from the center-right Republican Party, since the end of January, after a satirical newspaper reported that he had hired his wife and children as parliamentary assistants over the years and paid them with public money for possibly bogus jobs.
Mr. Fillon, once considered the front-runner to be the next president, was charged last week with embezzlement. He has plummeted in opinion polls since the scandal and is now lagging behind the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen of the National Front, and the centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is an independent.
Ms. Le Pen and her party are also facing several investigations, which have not seemed to affect her standing in the polls.
Calls for Mr. Le Roux to step down came from Mr. Fillon’s ranks as well as from within Mr. Le Roux’s party, the Socialists.
“We can’t tell François Fillon, ‘Step down, be an example’ and have the head of a ministry — what’s more, a sovereign one — not apply this to himself,” Benoît Hamon, the Socialist candidate in the presidential election, said at a news conference in Brussels.
Journalists from the French television show “Quotidien” revealed Monday that Mr. Le Roux, a lawmaker from 1997 to 2016, had hired his two daughters as parliamentary assistants from 2009 to 2016, paying them a total of €55,000, or $59,000, for 24 jobs, starting when they were 15 or 16 and still in high school.
According to “Quotidien,” at least two of the jobs overlapped with times when Mr. Le Roux’s daughters were interning abroad or studying. Mr. Le Roux, 51, acknowledged at the news conference that he had hired his daughters during “school and university vacations,” but defended his “honesty,” saying that their jobs had been “specific and official” and had “corresponded to work effectively carried out.”
Matthias Fekl, 39, a junior minister for foreign trade and tourism, will replace Mr. Le Roux until the next president is elected and forms his or her government in May. The interior ministryis responsible for the internal security of the country, and Mr. Fekl will lead it at a time when the country is on high alert with fear of terrorist attacks.
On Saturday, a man was killed in Orly Airport after attacking a soldier in a possible act of terrorism.
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