With Macron’s Blessing, France Unveils a Sweeping Ethics Overhaul

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/world/europe/france-emmanuel-macron-ethics-reform.html

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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s justice minister François Bayrou presented legislation on Thursday that would drastically rein in abuses in French politics, and would amount to a vigorous reinforcement of the existing ethics apparatus.

The announcement came just 10 days ahead of crucial legislative elections, and hours after a public prosecutor announced an investigation had been opened into the financial dealings of a recently appointed minister.

Mr. Bayrou announced a number of measures, some of which will require a revision of the country’s constitution. They include: imposing a limitation on public mandates; forbidding nepotism; reinforcing scrutiny over the financing of public parties and the use of public money; imposing stronger penalties against culpable politicians; as well as creating a public bank to finance political parties.

A number of the steps have often been promoted by anticorruption organizations and lawmakers, but none have ever become law.

“For years, we have seen practices develop that have imperiled, cracked and fractured the trust citizens must have in their elected representatives and provoked a profound exasperation among the French,” Mr. Bayrou said.

The justice minister, a seasoned politician who became a campaign ally of Mr. Macron on the condition that Mr. Macron make this legislation his top priority, acknowledged the need for increased transparency while warning against nurturing impossible expectations.

“No one can imagine that a bill will make every actor in public life or all citizens virtuous,” the minister said, adding later that he personally did not believe in “individual virtue,” but in “institutions.”

Most of the legislation — which consists of numerous measures targeting members of the government, members of Parliament and political parties, both symbolically and practically — will be discussed in Parliament this summer in parallel with a public consultation, Mr. Bayrou said.

If approved, one symbolic measure would do away with “double standards” by suppressing a special court made of Parliament members and Supreme Court justices that considers criminal cases against government officials.

Last year it found the International Monetary Fund chief and former finance minister Christine Lagarde guilty on charges of misusing public funds, but did not sentence her to jail or order her to pay a fine, a highly contentious decision. Under the new legislation, government officials would be judged by regular courts.

The same measure would forbid officials from holding the same public office for three consecutive terms. Also, members of the government — who currently can hold elective offices at different levels — would have to choose between their local and national mandates.

Another law would redirect a special budget allotted to members of Parliament to a public fund, forbid them from hiring their partners or members of their family, and limit their ability to run consulting activities while in office.

All are currently common practices among lawmakers, and they have been increasingly criticized as a sign of the disconnect between the struggling public and the elite.

A third regulation would reinforce transparency within the political parties by tightening controls on donations and prohibiting loans from foreign banks and entities. In 2014, the far-right National Front party took an $11.7 million loan from a Russian bank to help finance campaigns — money, officials said, party representatives were unable to obtain from any French or other European banks.

“It’s a good thing,” Nicolas Bay, a member of the National Front, said this morning on the French radio network RTL. “It saves us from having banks decide who can be a candidate or not.”

If passed by Parliament, the legislation would amount to a small revolution for France, which some say never truly abolished its feudal system of privileges.

Over the last five years, former President François Hollande’s ambitions to lead an “exemplary Republic” and to sanitize French politics suffered repeated blows, especially after a budget minister lied about engaging in tax evasion, which prompted the creation of an independent anticorruption office to enforce transparency.

The recently-elected Mr. Macron made the cleanup of politics a central promise of his campaign, after a scandal involving public money sank the bid of François Fillon, the conservative candidate.

Mr. Macron put much effort into attempting to form a government beyond reproach, and even delayed an official announcement for 24 hours to conduct background checks on each of his cabinet’s 22 members, with the prime minister set aside.

His pledge, however, took a severe hit last week when Le Canard Enchaîné, a satirical newspaper, revealed that the operators of a health fund led at the time by Richard Ferrand, the minister for territorial cohesion and a loyal ally of Mr. Macron, had rented office space from Mr. Ferrand’s partner while he was a local elected official. Mr. Ferrand confirmed the findings, but said the financial dealings were legal.

Asked repeatedly by reporters about Mr. Ferrand’s case, Mr. Bayrou read from a voluminous copy of the French criminal code to back his decision not to comment on the legal proceedings, citing the separation of powers.

The stakes are high for the new government. Mr. Macron needs to earn a majority in Parliament during the two-stage legislative elections this month if he wants to push through an ambitious overhaul of labor laws and steer France toward more European integration.

Current polls are giving Mr. Macron a clear lead over the other parties, but experts warn they may not reflect the impact the Ferrand case might be having on public opinion.

The news this week that a minister for European affairs — who is an ally of Mr. Bayrou — was one of several European lawmakers under preliminary investigation for possibly misusing European Parliament funds further casts a shadow on Thursday’s announcement.

“Will we have an ideal text?” Mr. Bayrou asked as he concluded his news conference on Thursday. “No. Will we have a text that prevents all incidents? No. But we will have made huge progress.”