French government minister Jean-Marie Le Guen has been taken to task by the government’s watchdog for underestimating how much he was worth in the first-ever public declaration of cabinet members’ wealth. Seven of his Socialist colleagues are millionaires, reports RFI.
The government’s transparency watchdog, the HATVP, ordered Le Guen, who is responsible for the cabinet’s relations with parliament, to redraft his wealth declaration, saying that he had underestimated the worth of property and real estate compared to their market value.
The Mediapart website claimed on Thursday that Le Guen’s first submission was 700,000 euros below the real value of his property and income and that he would be facing bills for unpaid tax for 50,000 euros for 2013 alone.
Le Guen inisists that he has not had a tax reassessment and told Le Monde newspaper on Friday that he had accepted the HATVP’s figures in his final declaration.
That puts him number two in the government wealth league with a total wealth of 3,291,324 euros.
Read more of this report from RFI.