French minister resigns over daughters’ jobs

PARIS: French interior minister Bruno Le Roux resignsed on Tuesday over holiday jobs for his daughters while they were teenagers. Prosecutors said they had opened a preliminary investigation into reports Roux employed his daughters as parliamentary aides.

The announcement by the national financial prosecution office came a day after broadcaster TMC reported that Le Roux’s two daughters had held a total of 24 temporary contracts in parliament, starting when one was 15 and the other 16.

Le Roux, who was only appointed in December, earlier justified his daughters’ jobs as shortterm summer work. Local media reported that he had cancelled most of his engagements on Tuesday.

Le Roux rejected any comparison with conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon, who is under investigation for allegedly giving his wife and children fake jobs as parliamentary aides.

But TMC also reported that two of the 24 shortterm contracts covered periods when one daughter was pursuing a full-time internship in Belgium and the other was in school. The broadcaster quoted Le Roux’s office as saying that on those occasions the girls made up their hours during their holidays and also worked off-site and in their free time. Those details were more damaging, as the allegations against Fillon were not that he employed relatives as such but that they were drawing salaries without actually working. Fillon has sunk to third place in the opinion polls since the allegations about his wife’s job emerged in January. He denies any wrongdoing but last week was placed under formal investigation by judges.