Following French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac’s vehement denials of Mediapart’s revelations that he held a secret bank account in Switzerland over a number of years until 2010, Mediapart publishes here a recording of a conversation in which Cahuzac explicitly refers to the account, held with a branch of Swiss banking giant UBS in Geneva.
“I don’t have an account in Switzerland and I never had one,” Cahuzac told Mediapart on Tuesday, shortly before it revealed the existence of the account. “It is clear that if you publish that, I will attack. I am a public figure,” he added.
Cahuzac, 60, who is also a plastic surgeon specialized in hair transplant operations, was appointed budget minister in the new socialist government in May. Last month he announced his ministry was launching a crackdown on tax fraud.
Immediately after Mediapart’s report was published on Tuesday evening, Cahuzac said he was filing a lawsuit against this website for defamation.
However, the extracts of the conversation published here demonstrate that the budget minister had held the account. In the recordings presented further below, Cahuzac can be heard saying: “What bothers me is that I still have an account open with UBS [...] It pisses me off to have an account open there,” before adding in ironic tone: “UBS is not necessarily the most hidden of banks.”
The recordings figure among several elements of evidence in Mediapart’s possession that demonstrate the existence of Cahuzac’s secret account. The conversation was recorded during a meeting with his wealth and investment advisor (see Boîte Noire, bottom of page) at the end of 2000. At the time, he was a socialist Member of Parliament for a constituency in the Lot-et-Garonne département (equivalent to a county) of south-west France.
Cahuzac was also then running for the post of mayor in a small town in the region, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, in elections to be held in March 2001 (he was eventually elected to the position, which he stood down from after becoming a minister earlier this year).
Shortly before the recording of the conversation began, Cahuzac had made a phone call to tell a person close to him that he had obtained the agreement of the then-interior minister, Daniel Vaillant, to make a special visit for the opening of a new police station in the Lot-et-Garonne.
After hanging up, he began a conversation in his office with a member of his staff. To all evidence unknowingly, he at some point activated the redial button on his phone. The call was picked up on a voicemail machine (see Boîte Noire, bottom of page) which recorded the conversation in which Cahuzac speaks openly with his advisor about his account with UBS.
The recording lasts for almost four minutes. It begins with the voicemail machine automatic time note of “15H37”. The first male voice that can be heard is not that of Cahuzac, and the exact words the unidentified person expressed are occasionally unclear, sometimes inaudible. However, it is apparent that the conversation is about financial affairs.
Subsequently, the easily-identifiable voice of Jérôme Cahuzac can be heard. After a dialogue lasting 1 minute and 40 seconds, Cahuzac can be heard saying: “What bothers me is that I still have an account open with UBS, but there’s nothing more there, no? The only way to close it is to go there?” He then sighs. (Click on the recording below).
Click here to download the file(WAV)
A little further into the recording, he then says: “It’s a pisser. Is there any kind of proxy [arrangement] possible?”
Throughout the conversation, Cahuzac appears to be notably troubled by the idea that he would have to make a visit in person to Switzerland in order to remove his name from the UBS account list. ''My signature is needed […] It’s a real pîsser. It needs going there. Me, I can’t go there, I don’t see what can be done.”
He then adds: “It pisses me off to have an account open there. UBS is not necessarily the most hidden of banks.” He sighs again. (Click on the recording below).
Click here to download the file (WAV)
Geneva trip 'probable'
During the conversation, Cahuzac can be heard trying to establish whether he can close the account without travelling in person to Geneva, or whether another person can be sent in his place. His advisor tells him this is not possible.
With his campaign already underway to become mayor of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, he was well aware that any outside knowledge of the UBS account would be politically fatal to him. “Above all, it’s not out of the question that I will become mayor in the month of March, so I really don’t want there to be the slightest ambiguity at all […],” he can be heard saying. (Click on recording below).
Click here to download the file (WAV)
On at least two occasions, Cahuzac appears to imply that his account holds few funds at that time, but that it is not empty. Towards the end of the conversation he says: “Above all, in a certain way, the assets stay with UBS and we can manage them from here. It’s a book-entry process, pure and simple.” (Click on the recording below).
Click here to download the file (WAV)
The extracts presented above are the most pertinent of Cahuzac’s comments about the account. The entire recording can be listened to by clicking the play button below.
Click here to download the file (WAV)
According to Mediapart sources, Cahuzac finally closed his account in early 2010, shortly before he was elected, in late February, as president of the finance commission of the French National Assembly (parliament’s lower house). Mediapart has learnt that he travelled by train to Geneva. Mediapart has discovered the identity, which we are withholding here, of one of Cahuzac’s contacts at the UBS bank, whose first name is Marc.
Asked on Tuesday by Mediapart whether he travelled to Geneva in 2010, Cahuzac replied: “No more so than to Turin, Milan or New York.” However, he has since told RTL radio that it was “probable” that he made a trip to Switzerland, explaining only that he travelled to the country to meet secret informants to discuss questions of a “fiscal nature”.
Mediapart has been informed that the funds hidden in Cahuzac’s Swiss account were, after it was closed, transferred to Singapore, via a complex offshore financial structure.
In his reaction to Mediapart’s initial revelations on Tuesday, the budget minister also indicated that this website was wrong in its account of the financing of his purchase in 1994 of a luxury apartment on the avenue de Breteuil in the upmarket 7th arrondissement of Paris, for which he paid 6.2 million French francs.
In a 2001 interview with a regional newspaper in south-west France, La Gazette de la Vallée du Lot, he claimed that two thirds of the purchase price was financed by a bank loan. During his interview today on RTL radio, he said he provided 15% of the purchase price from his own finances.
This is untrue. According to the notarial deed for the purchase of the four-bedroom apartment, Cahuzac, provided four million francs (equivalent to 600,000 euros) “from his personal finances” (see extract below). For the complete record of the notarial (sollicitor's) deed, click here.
Enlargement : Illustration 8
Speaking on Wednesday, December 5th, at the end of the weekly cabinet meeting, French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem commented : “As for the government, the prime minister and the president, each one has declared their solidarity with Jérôme Cahuzac, who is going through a particularly disagreeable episode.”
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See also:
French budget minister caught on tape discussing his secret Swiss account
List of Greek accounts in Switzerland 'just the tip of the iceberg'
Fighting the organised crime of tax evasion
The Belgian tax drain sucking French rich north
How the Bettencourt affair led Sarkozy before the judge
Judge links L'Oréal heiress cash withdrawals to Sarkozy campaign funding
Sarkozy campaign treasurer under investigation for illegal funding, influence peddling
L'Oréal heiress ordered to pay 77.7 million euros after tax scam probe
French prosecutor in Bettencourt affair illegally spied journalists' phone calls
Dinners, cash and Sarkozy: what Bettencourt's accountant told Mediapart
Bettencourt butler bites back: 'I saw L'Oréal family destroyed'
Bettencourt tapes stolen in mystery break-ins targetting Mediapart, Le Point and Le Monde
French interior minister drops libel action against Mediapart
Why we need a strong media in France
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English version: Graham Tearse