Retrial for tax-dodging French ex-minister

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February 12, 2018 12:21 PM

Cahuzac resigned in 2013 after becoming a source of huge embarrassment to then president Hollande given that the minister's job was to crack down on tax dodgers.

Frances former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac faces a retrial starting Monday after he was handed a three-year jail sentence for tax fraud in one of the biggest scandals of Francois Hollandes presidency.

A plastic surgeon before entering politics, Cahuzac was found guilty in 2016 of funnelling cash into a Swiss bank account from the lucrative hair transplant clinic he ran with his ex-wife.

The 65-year-old appealed his three-year sentence, prompting a full re-trial that could see Cahuzac risk up to five years in prison and a 375,000 euro ($460,000) fine.

His former wife Patricia Menard, who held an account in the Isle of Man that was also used in the fraud, was sentenced to two years in prison.

In France sentences of this length are not usually served behind bars -- instead via an electronic bracelet or other curtailments on a person's liberty -- and she has not appealed the ruling.

Cahuzac, a rising Socialist star who was well respected across the political spectrum, initially denied having a Swiss account after investigative journalism outlet Mediapart reported it in 2012.

Footage of him lying to parliament was repeated in an endless loop on TV news channels after he finally confessed in April 2013, "consumed by remorse", to having the account.

He said in evidence that he hid funds offshore to maintain his family's standard of living, which included buying apartments for his children in London and Paris and paying for holidays in Mauritius.

Along with the jail sentence, he was banned from holding office for five years.

Cahuzac's bank in Geneva, Reyl, was fined 1.9 million euros.

Its boss Francois Reyl was handed a one-year suspended jail term and a 375,000 euro fine for helping Cahuzac move his funds from Switzerland to Singapore using opaque offshore companies.

The scandal was the first in a string that haunted Hollande's time in office before he bowed out last year, replaced by centrist Emmanuel Macron who ran on a promise to clean up politics.

The scandal prompted France to set up a national anti-corruption agency and a specialised financial prosecution service.

Hollande also ordered his ministers to disclose their personal wealth, breaking a taboo in a country where politicians' assets had long been considered a private matter.

The retrial is due to run until February 21.

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