Macron ally quits, faces reshuffle

Lebanese conman who posed as secret agent jailed

PARIS, June 21, (Agencies): French President Emmanuel Macron is shaking up his five-week-old government Wednesday — and will have to make more changes than anticipated after the minister who was leading Macron’s crusade to purify politics was forced to quit over corruption allegations.

Justice Minister Francois Bayrou’s departure is the latest drama to hit Macron’s presidency. He’s one of four ministers who have announced this week they’re leaving the government.

Bayrou announced his resignation Wednesday following allegations of misuse of European Parliament funds by his centrist Modem party. Even more embarrassing for Macron is that Bayrou was in the process of promoting a law to clean up politics, a key policy promise of the recently elected president.

Government spokesman Christophe Castaner said on radio Europe 1 that Bayrou’s decision was a “personal choice” and that he “wants to be able to defend himself in that case.”

But Castaner also acknowledged that “it simplifies the situation” because the government will no longer be dogged by questions and criticism of Bayrou and his party.

Bayrou’s departure means Modem has lost all three Cabinet posts it had in Macron’s government, following the departure of defense chief Sylvie Goulard and Marielle de Sarnez, the minister for European affairs.

Richard Ferrand has also stood down as minister for territorial cohesion to lead the group of lawmakers elected under the banner of Macron’s party at the National Assembly. He’s also facing an investigation for alleged conflict of interest related to his past business practices. He denies doing anything illegal, but acknowledges some old habits are no longer accepted by the public.

The reshuffle, which is expected to take place by the end of the day, was initially intended to be minor following Sunday’s big win for Macron’s Republic on the Move! party in legislative elections.

European affairs minister De Sarnez pulled out of the government just days after winning a seat in Sunday’s elections. She will now preside over Modem party lawmakers in the lower house, French media reported.

Like the ex-defense minister, Bayrou and de Sarnez could become subjects of investigations over the use of parliamentary assistants who were improperly paid.

Meanwhile, France’s far-right National Front refused to let the party’s co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen attend a crucial meeting Tuesday, blocking him at the gate on his 89th birthday.

Le Pen, whose daughter Marine has run the party since 2011, said outside party headquarters that while he was forced out of the National Front in 2015, he had a right to attend because of his status as honorary president for life, confirmed by a court.

Problems

The meeting to hash out problems was called amid growing divisions in the party that worsened after Marine Le Pen’s huge loss to Emmanuel Macron in France’s May 7 presidential election. The session was seen as a first step toward a remake of the National Front, including a change in its name.

Had the elder Le Pen been allowed to attend the meeting of the anti-immigration party’s political bureau, it would doubtless have increased tensions in what was expected to be a turbulent gathering, with some opposed to the anti-euro currency strategy that dominated Marine Le Pen’s presidential campaign.

Seven working groups were set up during the nearly five-hour meeting, and were to report back in late July when “decisions will result,” a statement said.

Speaking outside the gate, Le Pen noted that he lent the party 9 million euros ($10 million) for his daughter’s failed presidential race and legislative elections, in which Marine Le Pen was one of eight lawmakers elected. The loan was from his funding group Cotelec.

He was kicked out of the party for repeating an anti-Semitic remark amid his daughter’s effort to clean up the National Front’s image.

With his trademark irony, Le Pen said that his daughter doubtless was offering him a birthday gift “by this particular delicacy of the heart.”

The party has been hit with other setbacks, including the decision of Marine Le Pen’s popular niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, to leave politics, and not seek re-election.

Also: VERSAILLES, France:

A Lebanese man who posed as a secret agent for a decade to swindle millions of euros from his victims was jailed for five years in France on Tuesday.

A court in Versailles, west of Paris, also ordered Dany Hadid to pay 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million) in damages and interest to six plaintiffs, including an Egyptian restaurant-owner he had reduced to financial ruin.

Hadid, 42, was sentenced to a fiveyear prison term for fraud and moneylaundering and further fined 80,000 euros. He has been barred from running companies for the next 10 years.

He had managed to extract large sums for himself and his accomplices from personal and professional contacts by convincing them that he was an intelligence agent who could offer them services in exchange for cash, the court heard.

The money would then be transferred to Hadid, sometimes using opaque Lebanese bank accounts.

Hadid, who lived in Rambouillet west of Paris, denied the accusations, saying he was the victim of a “cabal” launched against him by the alleged victims and his own co-defendants.

His main accomplice, a former musician in a police brass band who worked on the scam as a driver and courier, has already been jailed for two years.

Four other co-defendants including an accounting expert were handed suspended sentences of between six and 18 months.

Portugal forest fire smoulders:

Hundreds of firefighters battled blazes in central Portugal on Wednesday as the funerals of some of the 64 people killed in the inferno renewed anger over the emergency response to the disaster.

Questions swirled over how so many people could have died in the forest fire, most of whom perished on a single road that locals say should have been sealed off by first responders.

From early Wednesday, firefighting planes flew sorties over the smouldering forest canopy in the central Pedrogao Grande region, dropping water on the flames still licking pine and eucalyptus trees, according to an AFP journalist on the scene. (AFP)

Migrant death truck trial opens:

Eleven men went on trial on Wednesday over the deaths of 71 migrants found in an abandoned truck in Austria nearly two years ago, in one of the most disturbing cases marking Europe’s migration crisis.

The gruesome discovery of 59 men, eight women and four children crammed inside a refrigerated lorry near the Hungarian border in August 2015 sparked international revulsion.

It also prompted countries along the nowshut western Balkan migrant route to open their borders to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty, mainly in the Middle East.

The trial is being held in the southern Hungarian town of Kecskemet because authorities determined that the migrants’ deaths had occurred in Hungary. (AFP)