Macron ally in hot water over property loan deal

ONE of French President Emmanuel Macron’s closest allies faced accusations of wrongdoing over a property deal yesterday, causing embarrassment as the new government prepares a new law to clean up politics.

Richard Ferrand, a crucial early supporter of Macron and a senior minister in his first government, was revealed to have benefited from the deal while he ran a public health insurance fund.

The Canard Enchaîne newspaper reported that while working as director general of a fund in his native Brittany region in 2011, the organisation agreed to rent a building proposed by his partner. On the strength of the rental contract, she secured a loan enabling her property management company to buy the building worth around €400,000 (£346,000), the report said. Substantial renovation work was carried out by the fund which increased the property’s value, it added.

“The administrators of the board, on which I did not sit, picked the best offer... which was a building owned by my partner,” Mr Ferrand told the BFM television channel yesterday. He called the claims a “pseudo-scandal”.

Mr Ferrand faced calls from farright leader Marine Le Pen to resign, while the head of the Socialist party, Jean-christophe Cambadelis, called on him to explain himself.

“On the question of him resigning, it hasn’t even been discussed,” government spokesman Christophe Castaner told a press conference. “The probity of the minister is not in doubt at all.”