Minister with six cars accused of hypocrisy

FOR a man on a mission to ban petroland diesel-guzzling cars, Nicolas Hulot, the French environment minister, is fond of combustion engine vehicles – having no fewer than eight of them.

His green credentials have been tested after his fleet was revealed this weekend when the assets of President Emmanuel Macron’s ministers were published by the High Authority for Transparency in Public Office. Mr Hulot, who last summer announced that France will outlaw the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040, has a Land Rover he keeps at his holiday home in Corsica, a 30-year-old 2CV, a Peugeot, a Citroën, a Volkswagen camper van and a BMW. He also has a motorboat and a BMW motorbike, both of which use fossil fuel.

The minister responded by saying that he travels in his ministry’s electric cars or on electric scooters “95 per cent of the time” and that accusations that he was not practising what he preaches were “absurd”. “I am all for transparency, but I am not for voyeurism or hairsplitting,” he said.

The publication of ministers’ wealth also revealed that more than a third of Mr Macron’s cabinet are millionaires, which is likely to do little to dispel accusations that the head of state is the “president of the rich”.