France's ex-budget minister Jerome Cahuzac 'tried to invest 15 million euros'
Disgraced former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac reportedly tried to invest around 15 million euros in a Swiss fund in 2009.
Jerome Cahuzac leaving the Elysee presidential Palace after attending a meeting on investment strategy in Paris in January Photo: AFP/GETTY
By Barney Henderson, and agencies
6:33PM BST 07 Apr 2013
Mr Cahuzac was charged with tax fraud after he admitted owning an undeclared foreign bank account containing some 600,000 euros ($770,000) last month.
However, Swiss public television network RTS reported on its website that the former leading Socialist once tried to deposit many times that amount, citing unidentified banking sources.
"He is thought to have tried to invest this money in a financial management firm in Geneva, but the establishment is believed to have refused for fear of future complications, Jerome Cahuzac being a politically prominent figure," RTS reported.
Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger also claimed that when Mr Cahuzac decided to transfer money to Singapore in 2009 he provided a falsified tax certificate.
Mr Cahuzac, a cabinet heavyweight who had been tasked with fighting tax evasion by President Francois Hollande, finally admitted to having a foreign bank account last week, following weeks of denials.
The scandal has been a major blow to Mr Hollande, with surveys indicating yesterday that nearly two-thirds of French people are in favour of a government reshuffle
Three in five respondents to a poll conducted for the Journal du Dimanche newspaper said they were in favour of a government reshuffle over the "Cahuzac affair".
A majority of the more than 1,000 respondents also said the scandal had had a negative impact on Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, his government and on Mr Hollande himself.
"For the French, the Cahuzac affair is not an isolated act. There is mistrust towards their elected representatives," Frederic Dabi, deputy head of Ifop, the polling company that conducted the survey, was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Jean-Yves Le Drian, France's defence minister announced that a camel given to Mr Hollande in Mali in February as a gift from a local official for liberating the county from Islamic extremists had been killed and eaten.
Mr Hollande was presented with the camel on his triumphant visit to Mali, but left it in the care of a family in Timbuktu because of complications in transporting it back to France. The young camel has now apparently been killed and turned into a stew.
