declaration

The Droits Humains collective wants France to replace the words  'rights of man' with the expression 'human rights for everyone'.

An official French watchdog that monitors the financial probity of holders of public office has alerted the Paris public prosecutor’s office to its “serious doubt” that a French Senator and two members of the National Assembly, the lower house, deliberately under-declared their assets to parliament “notably due to the omission” of their secret bank accounts in Switzerland. The cases of Senator Bruno Sido and MPs Lucien Degauchy and Bernard Brochand, all from the conservative opposition UMP party, emerge just one year after the socialist government’s budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac was forced to resign following Mediapart’s revelations of his secret account with Swiss bank UBS, and months after a junior minister was found to have avoided paying income tax for several years. Mathilde Mathieu reports.

Watchdog ordered millionaire Jean-Marie Le Guen to re-evaluate property portfolio he had listed at €700,000 below true value.

French MPs vote for amendment under which their assets will only be made public to people on electoral list who request the information.

The declarations by each French minister shows a mixed bag of comfortable fortunes, led by foreign minister's assets worth 6 million euros.

List of ministers' assets could set off a storm on Monday, revealing handful of millionaires in Socialist government as nation endures spending cuts.

After a tax-dodging scandal and ahead of likely stiff new disclosure standards, politicians are publishing details of their properties and assets.