The scandal surrounding disgraced former French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, who earlier this month confessed to holding a secret bank account in Switzerland over a period of some 20 years, a fact first revealed by Mediapart last December, continues to shake President François Hollande’s socialist government. While all ministers have been ordered to publicly declare their personal wealth online, beginning Monday, ahead of planned legislation aimed at tackling the hidden conflicts of interest rife in French politics, allegations continue that the government was initially involved in a cover-up in favour of Cahuzac.
The French parliament's lower house, the National Assembly, will decide on April 24th whether or not there is justification for a commission of enquiry into the government's handling of the affair while Cahuzac was minister. But the main target of the accusations is economy and finance minister Pierre Moscovici, who will be questioned Tuesday about his own role by the Assembly's finance commission. In this lengthy interview with Mediapart’s Laurent Mauduit and Martine Orange, Moscovici defends his actions during the four months in which he stood by Jérôme Cahuzac, despite the mounting evidence revealed by Mediapart that his junior minister and one-time friend consistently lied about holding hidden funds abroad. During the interview, Moscovici notably reveals that the former budget minister declined to provide a written statement, requested by tax authorities last December, as to whether he held or not a secret foreign bank account. “Faced with the firmness and the number of his denials, I had the tendency and the wish to believe Jérôme Cahuzac,” Moscovici says.
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MEDIAPART: A preliminary investigation into evidence that Jérôme Cahuzac was involved in 'laundering of the proceeds of tax fraud' was opened on January 8th by the public prosecutor’s office. But you requested, via your administration and 16 days later, the cooperation of the Swiss authorities for an enquiry into the eventual existence of a bank account held by Cahuzac. Wasn’t this enquiry, launched by you into accusations targeting a fellow member of government, tantamount to a clear violation of the principal of the separation of the political and judicial powers given that the justice authorities had already begun their own investigations?
Pierre Moscovici: I am happy to be able to enter into a dialogue with Mediapart, which played a major role in this affair. My ministry has [found itself] called into question, and that’s logical. I would like to demonstrate, with facts, my honesty and the reasoning behind my actions.
On December 7th, three days after the first publication of Mediapart’s investigation, the directorate general of the public finances department, in liaison with the ministry’s judicial affairs department, formally requested an investigation in order to establish a clear distinction between the ministerial functions of Jérôme Cahuzac and his personal case. As of December 10th, a ‘Great Wall of China’ [sic] was set up within the ministry. Upon his request, Jérôme Cahuzac was excluded from [involvement in] everything that involved his own case, and all the information was passed up to my level.
Then, as of the end of December, before the opening of a preliminary [judicial] investigation, we thought of this request for cooperation with Switzerland. Not in order to whitewash Jérôme Cahuzac, not to help a friend, not to be accommodating, but because we had, as a matter of principle, a doubt, because there had been an accusation, a methodic doubt. We wanted to know.
As a minister, I placed my confidence in my junior minister [Jérôme Cahuzac], who had on numerous occasions sworn to me that he did not have an account in Switzerland. A government is a team. We cannot work without confidence. But, at the same time, my duty was to help establish the truth. When I launched the procedure for cooperation with Switzerland, it’s because the question had been asked for too long and was still on the agenda. It was not logical to have done it [to request Swiss cooperation in the investigation] earlier. Between December 14th and January 14th, the public finances department had asked Jérôme Cahuzac about any eventual accounts [he may have held] abroad, a question to which he never replied. I’d remind you that our convention with Switzerland requires that national administrative procedures must be exhausted before making a request for cooperation, and that as a general rule it is clearly well after investigations by the fiscal administration [are completed] that such requests are made and that they take about a year [before a result].
I also want to make clear that this does not involve a political operation, but plainly an administrative cooperation. When I spoke to the Swiss Minister of Finance on two occasions during this period, on January 21st and 25th, I asked him for one thing only: for a reply to our request for technical assistance, and to do it quickly. Whatever the answer. Because we wanted to know.
The best proof that we wanted to contribute to the demonstration of the truth is that at the same time we fully cooperated with the [French] judicial authorities. All the things that were asked of us concerning Jéôme Cahuzac’s fiscal situation were passed on to the justice authorities, and this concerning a period of more than 20 years. Similarly, all the elements that we had found through the request for cooperation [from the Swiss authorities] were immediately passed on to the [French] police [investigating the case].
MEDIAPART: Would it not have been better that you did not ask the Swiss for help and that you should have left the French public prosecutor’s office, in charge of the preliminary investigation, to do its job?
P.M.: If I had not done it, when finally it transpired that, after a long period of lies, Jérôme cahuzac did have an account in Switzerland, we would today be rightly blamed for not having made a move, for not having established this request for cooperation, for not having used the means at our disposal. It is not a case of carrying out a parallel enquiry. The government respects the independence of the judiciary. But, in the place that is mine, it was normal to help establish the truth. I couldn’t do everything, but I couldn’t do nothing.
MEDIAPART: Is it true that, on December 14th 2012, the French tax authorities asked Monsieur Cahuzac to declare by writing that he did not have an undeclared account in Switzerland and that this formal denial was never given?
P.M.: Yes, that is true. It was in the framework of a procedure by the tax authorities. The latter asked Jérôme Cahuzac for all elements concerning eventual “open, closed or used foreign bank accounts”. He was indeed the subject of such a request and he did not reply to it.
MEDIAPART: Why did this refusal to reply not cause more of an alert?
P.M.: I’d remind you that during this period, Jérôme Cahuzac never stopped repeating that he was innocent, before parliament, before the highest authorities of the State.
But doubts did indeed persist, which is what then led us to make the request for cooperation from Switzerland, and to strongly insist for a swift response. And we received it, since the Swiss administration replied as of January 31st, with a rapidity never seen before.
Imagine one thing. If Switzerland had given us a positive reply, saying that Jérôme Cahuzac had an account with [the] UBS [bank], it would have been over. He would have left government the same day. So our move was not to cover up for, nor, on the opposite, to damn, Jérôme Cahuzac, but simply to try and find out the truth. It was later shown that he no longer held an account with UBS and, no doubt, transferred it to another bank well before 2010. But we could not know that on January 24th, the date of our request for cooperation [from the Swiss].
MEDIAPART: Speaking on Europe 1 radio station on April 7th, you explained that if the questions were badly put and targeted only an account with UBS, it was because Mediapart mentioned UBS and had not spoken of the Reyl bank before February 1st. In fact, we raised the role of the Reyl bank as of an article published on December 11th 2012, and again on January 13th and 17th. Do you admit to having restricted the range of questions asked of the Swiss, or was this simply a blunder?
P.M.: Can I be blamed for having founded the terms of my request on information published by Mediapart? When you published [your first investigation], on December 4th, your central theory was that Jérôme Cahuzac had an account with UBS. I don’t ignore the fact that you later spoke of the existence of Monsieur Dominique Reyl and of Monsieur Hervé Dreyfus, susceptible to have served as intermediaries. Perhaps you had other information, but you hadn’t mentioned, before February, the hypothesis of an account with the Reyl bank. The nuance here is important.
The question is not of re-writing history today. If I had known that this account could have been transferred to another bank, I would have, naturally, asked the question. But when we prepared the request for cooperation [from the Swiss], we put the questions according to the information at our disposal. What are the questions that we asked? Did Jérôme Cahuzac have an account with the UBS bank in Geneva? In 2010? Had it been transferred? Is it held under his name or [as that of] a beneficiary? We went as far back as was possible in time, to 2006, and in space, to Singapore or any other country. What’s more, we asked the question concerning himself or as an economic beneficiary, which could concern intermediaries.
I did not have sufficient information to ask other questions and I did not have any legitimacy to do so. The convention with Switzerland is clear: we can ask the Swiss tax authorities about the existence of an account in one or several Swiss banks if we have information that is of a nature to allow their identification. On the other hand, to proceed with a question concerning all the banks is totally excluded, for that is likened to fishing around for information. Now, at the time only an account with UBS was being mentioned.
Finally, I didn’t consider that our move for administrative cooperation was an end to the affair. Doubts continued to exist even if, at the time, faced with the firmness and the number of his denials I had the tendency and the wish to believe Jérôme Cahuzac.
MEDIAPART: Did you at the time have knowledge of reports from other administrative services that mentioned the existence of an account held in Switzerland by Jérôme Cahuzac or other figures?
P.M.: Never. I have never had knowledge of any such documents. I never asked for the slightest enquiry from other services. Contrary to what the magazine Valeurs actuelles reports, and against which I will file a lawsuit, the tax authorities never established a group of investigators to verify the existence in Switzerland or in France of an account held by Jérôme Cahuzac. I say again, there was never question of carrying out a parallel investigation. We intervened with our means to help in establishing the truth, in total transparency with the justice authorities.
MEDIAPART: The results of this enquiry were passed on to you at the end of January. As of February 5th, French weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published an article suggesting that the Swiss authorities gave a negative reply about the existence of an account held by Jérôme Cahuzac. On February 7th, speaking on radio station France Inter, you declared that “When launching this procedure, I had no doubt about the result”. Is that not a clear recognition that the operation had no other aim than that of white-washing Jérôme Cahuzac, who you then described as a friend?
P.M.: What caused me to speak that day was the leak [published] in Le Nouvel Observateur, a leak for which my ministry was in no way responsible. The response from the Swiss was sent to only one destination, the directorate general of the public finances department, who itself transferred it only the police. Myself, I read the document, but I didn’t have [a copy of] it. In these circumstances, where did the leak come from? I don’t know. But I remind you that , according to their internal legal code, the Swiss authorities inform tax payers who are the subject of such a procedure. Jérôme Cahuzac’s legal counsel is therefore certainly aware of the existence of this enquiry.
Then, when I reply about this matter during the [radio] programme, I did so with a mixture of confidence and amicable tone, with broad and friendly terms, perhaps, it is true, too much so. But look again at what I said. I am cautious not to interpret the [Swiss] document in a definitive manner, and to give it a meaning that it did not have. At no moment did I say that Jérôme Cahuzac was cleared, and I state that it is for the justice system to do its job.
MEDIAPART: But French citizens could have the feeling that they have been taken advantage of, as also the justice authorities.
P.M.: No, the justice authorities were not taken advantage of. The proof that they weren’t is that they continued effectively with their job. They took the documents for what they were and continued their investigation.
MEDIAPART: All the same, the exploitation of the document in the media continued with the weekly Le Journal du dimanche, which on February 11th ran the headline ‘Switzerland clears Cahuzac’. You recently said that “I was used”. Who used you?
P.M.: I may have some ideas, but I have no proof. The only thing I can say is that nobody in the ministry, neither myself nor the members of my cabinet, nor the general director of the public finances department and his teams, gave the information to the Journal du dimanche. Despite this, the article cited members of my entourage. That sparked my anger. I say this, because this article can be seen as putting pressure on the investigation. That strongly displeases me.
MEDIAPART: In this operation, what role could have been played by Stéphane Fouks, head of the PR and advertising agency Euro RSCG, which also has a contract with your ministry?
P.M.: Jérôme Cahuzac went on to draw general conclusions from this article and saw in his continuation in government the proof of his innocence. I asked him then for explanations. He affirmed to me that he was for nothing in all that. But you will understand that it is not for me to discover or to elucidate the role of an entourage.
I also want to make clear that all of that has absolutely nothing to do with the PR advisory contract with Gilles Finchelstein.
MEDIAPART: Among the measures taken in response to the Cahuzac scandal, President François Hollande has announced the creation of a special service of the public prosecutor’s office specialized in fighting tax evasion and corruption. However, until now, it is the tax authorities which had the power and the means to carry out investigations and to engage in punitive procedures. Do you therefore want the tax authorities to share these prerogatives in order for the public prosecutor’s financial service to be truly effective?
P.M.: What the president announced naturally implies work of an inter-ministerial kind, which is underway. Among the announcements he made, some involve more the ministry of finance, others involve other ministries more, notably the [justice ministry]. But you will understand that I am in total solidarity with these announcements, because there was an imperative need to respond with measures of transparency and against fraud to the shock amongst public opinion that was created by the lie of an important member of government. My administration will therefore naturally be in a position of total cooperation with the justice authorities, which is obviously already the situation in a great many cases. I make sure that things function for the best. There will be no power battles on a subject as important as that one.
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- This is an abridged version of Mediapart's interview conducted in French with Pierre Moscovici on April 13th, presenting the unbroken opening sequence of questions and answers concerning the scandal surrounding Jérôme Cahuzac. The complete interview, in which the French finance minister also answers questions about future plans for tackling tax evasion and the divisions within government over its austerity measures, can be read here (in French only).
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English version by Graham Tearse