Roll up for ministerial striptease

Activists of Save the Rich carry posters reading 'Tax Revolution' in Paris. Photo / AP

President Hollande orders drive to 'moralise' politics.

French ministers revealed their private wealth en masse as part of a drive by the President Francois Hollande to impose transparency on a stubbornly secretive political culture.

The Socialist Government was revealed to contain several multi-millionaires, including Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is worth more than €6 million ($9.26 million), and the Minister for Elderly People, Michele Delaunay, who is worth just over €5 million.

The exercise was part of a drive to "moralise" French politics announced by Hollande last week in the wake of the Jerome Cahuzac tax evasion scandal. The 38 ministers were ordered by the President to reveal their total family wealth - bank balances, property, business holdings, cars, jewels and art works.

To the dismay of both left- and right-wing politicians, a law will be enacted in the next couple of months to oblige all parliamentarians to do the same.

One centre-right parliamentarian complained yesterday that it was like asking him to "show off his wife naked". The French press spoke of a "governmental Crazy Horse saloon".

The French Government's official website has rarely been so popular. The site was inundated with hits at the time originally given for the ministerial striptease.

Hollande insists that a new openness is necessary in a country in which the private dealings of politicians - and even their expenses - have rarely been subject to official scrutiny. Hollande is desperately trying to regain the moral high ground - or, his opponents suggest, trying to change the subject - after his former Budget Minister admitted two weeks ago that he had been cheating on his taxes for two decades.

Cahuzac, 60, once a wealthy cosmetic surgeon, was until last month the minister in charge of spending cuts and cracking down on tax evasion.

After four months of denials, including lies to the President and Parliament, he admitted that he had regularly hidden money in bank accounts abroad and still held €600,000 in Singapore.

Hollande says public declaration of politicians' wealth will help to reassure the public that the majority of their elected officials are not crooks. In future, it will be possible to check whether ministers and parliamentarians have accumulated wealth while in office. He did not join in the exercise. As a presidential candidate last year, he had revealed he had property and savings worth about €1.1 million.

Opposition Leader Jean-Francois Cope, has dismissed the revelations as a form of "voyeurism". He accuses Hollande of inviting the French public to judge politicians not by their honesty or competence but by their wealth.

Millionaire ministers

Laurent Fabius, 66, Foreign Minister
Fabius comes from a wealthy art-dealing family and fantasies have long existed about his personal riches. In the event, he declared a comparatively modest 6.07 million ($9.36 million), consisting of a 2.7 million apartment in Paris, two country homes and a collection of antique furniture.

Michele Delaunay, 65, Minister for Elderly People
Delaunay, formerly a leading cancer specialist, revealed that she and her husband were worth 5.4 million. This included four properties worth 3.1 million and 200,000 in paintings and antique furniture.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, 63, Prime Minister
A former German teacher and long-time Mayor of Nantes, Ayrault declared himself to be worth 1.55 million. This consisted mostly of two homes in Nantes and Brittany (jointly owned with his wife) and a 1988 Volkswagen Combi worth 1000.

- Independent