FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy has told his embattled labour minister, Éric Woerth, to step down as treasurer of the ruling UMP party but has rejected calls to implement an early cabinet reshuffle.
Badly shaken by a series of recent controversies, Mr Sarkozy sought to reassert control last night by giving a live one-hour interview on France 2 television.
Speaking solemnly from the garden of the Élysée Palace, the French tricolour and an EU flag in the background, the president insisted that Mr Woerth was a “deeply honourable man” who was being targeted because he was steering a controversial pension reform.
Mr Woerth has been under intense pressure since his name turned up on secret recordings of the L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who is being investigated by French authorities in relation to alleged tax evasion.
The opposition says Mr Woerth had a conflict of interest because his wife, Florence, worked for a company which gave financial advice to Ms Bettencourt at a time when he was responsible for reducing tax evasion.
It has also been alleged that Mr Woerth took a €150,000 cash donation for Mr Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign from Ms Bettencourt — a claim Mr Woerth strongly denies.
“I spoke to Éric Woerth and I asked him to devote himself exclusively to pension reform and I advised him to no longer serve as treasurer,” Mr Sarkozy said. “Now that he has been cleared of all suspicion my advice to him is to no longer exercise that responsibility.”
The finance ministry’s tax inspectorate concluded in a report that Mr Woerth had not intervened in the tax affairs of the Bettencourts, their wealth manager or friends.
Told by interviewer David Pujadas that the public prosecutor in charge of an investigation into allegations of illegal donations to the UMP, Philippe Courroye, “is known to be close to you”, Mr Sarkozy replied that Mr Courroye had presided over high-profile cases involving right-wing politicians in the past.
“Do you think it’s for me, as president of the republic, to choose judges,” he asked. “That’s not my conception of the independence of the judiciary.”
Mr Sarkozy’s first television interview in six months was aimed partly at assuaging concerns within his own camp after a traumatic few weeks that have seen the president’s popularity drop to its lowest level since he came to power.
The loss of a traditionally safe UMP seat in a parliamentary by-election outside Paris at the weekend added to the party’s worries that recent scandals were causing serious damage.
In last night’s interview, Mr Sarkozy rejected calls from within his party for an early cabinet reshuffle. “If I listened to all the advice I was given, I’d have made three reshuffles since the regional elections [in March],” he said. Pressed on the topic, however, Mr Sarkozy hinted that an October reshuffle was likely.
The president repeatedly sought to bring the interview to the topic of pension reform, where he seemed more comfortable.
He argued that with French people enjoying a longer life expectancy and other European countries raising their retirement ages, France needed to take similar action to cut its deep pensions deficit. The government is expected today to formally table its proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.