France: Ex-Minister Admits Lying About Secret Bank Account
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Version 0 of 1. The former budget minister, Jérôme Cahuzac, admitted Tuesday that he lied to Parliament and the president about the existence of a secret overseas bank account. Mr. Cahuzac, left, who resigned over the scandal, confessed to investigating magistrates that he had an undeclared account in Switzerland and then Singapore, as the Web site Mediapart had asserted. Mr. Cahuzac was preliminarily indicted on tax fraud charges, and in a statement on Tuesday, President François Hollande criticized him for “an unpardonable moral fault” in lying to “the country’s highest authorities.” Mr. Hollande’s critics accused him of a delay in cleaning house. The politician François Bayrou said the scandal produced “damages that are considerable and devastating” for French politics. |