French Government for Sale: Sold!

It all started out with the greed of a daughter. Françoise Meyers-Bettencourt is imagines it is her right to inherit from her mother without ever doing anything to earn it. She dragged photographer François-Marie Barrier to court over a gift of a billion Euros (give and take a few cents) which he received from Liliane Bettencourt. Bettencourt is the heiress of the L’Oréal fortune of estimated 16 billion Euros; one must understand the daughter’s concern; with a billion gone there is nothing left but breadcrumbs.

The court case opened on the 1st of July and produced daily humorous insights every day. Bettencourt’s billions are parked in a holding called Clymène as far as they have not been manoeuvred to Singapore to evade French tax authorities. One director of the board of Clymène is called Florence Woerth. She just happens to be the wife of French Minister for Finances Eric Woerth. Eric Woerth in turn made a big hullaballoo about tracking down tax evaders when illegally acquiring a data disc stolen from bank HSBC.

Florence Woerth meanwhile quit her 13,000 Euro a month job. A bit late, even if she didn’t know anything about Bettencourt’s private finances; a claim which is highly doubtful.

The former accountant of Bettencourt’s revealed that Nicolas Sarkozy received several high payments from Bettencourt in the time when he was mayor of Neuilly-sur Seine where Bettencourt makes her home. The spice in these ‘donations’ to Sarkozy may be found in the fact that they were done in cash. Would official money for official purposes be paid in cash?

Before the presidential election, an additional 150,000 Euros changed hands in cash. This time they went to Eric Woerth responsible person for the finances of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign. Seemingly, the donation was forgotten in the books of the campaign organisation and the political party UMP. Probably the recipient of the cash forgot to inform the cashier of the party. The cashier of UMP is someone called Eric Woerth.

For this payment, 50,000 Euros in cash had been withdrawn by Bettencourt herself from her French account. A further 100,000 Euros in cash had been brought from abroad by her asset manager Patrice de Maistre. I am sure that the recipients of the cash payments will claim they were doing their best to repatriate money to cash strapped France.

All persons mentioned in this article have joined in a common mantra, repeating it over and over like a scratchy vinyl record: ‘It’s all not true.’ Let’s join them in their prayers; it’s all not true, it’s all not true, it’s all not true; the world is round; it’s all not true …

Two ministers from that same French government left their posts under a cloud of embezzlement during the last few weeks. And it was all not true, either.