France is braced to hear the shocking details of the biggest scandal to hit François Hollande’s presidency as the former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac goes on trial for tax fraud.



Cahuzac was appointed Hollande’s tax tsar in 2012 to lead the Socialist president’s crusade against high-wealth tax-avoiders and make the rich pay their share of dragging France out of its economic woes. But Cahuzac was forced to admit in 2013 that he had hidden his own money in a secret account in Switzerland for 20 years and lied about it to parliament, destroying Hollande’s honest image.

On Monday Cahuzac appeared in court to face charges of tax fraud and tax evasion for laundering the proceeds. If convicted he could face up to seven years in prison and a €2m (£1.5m) fine.

The case threatens to lift the lid on the most damaging saga to hit Hollande’s government, just as he gears up for the presidential re-election battle of 2017.



Cahuzac, 63, was a cardiologist who became a plastic surgeon and made a fortune as Paris’s leading hair-transplant expert in the 1990s. At his luxurious surgery near the Champs Élysées, he restored the balding crowns of France’s biggest names in show business and politics while also pursuing his own distinguished political career.

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When Hollande named him as budget minister to lead France’s clampdown on tax evasion, it was one of the most important appointments in government. Cracking down on financial corruption and taxing the mega-rich had been Hollande’s rallying election cry.

But in December 2012, only months after Hollande’s election, a bombshell hit when the respected investigative website Mediapart revealed that Cahuzac had been hiding his money. From 1992, he held an undisclosed account at the Swiss bank UBS that contained €600,000. He travelled to Geneva to close it and transfer the money to Singapore just before he was made head of the parliamentary finance commission in February 2010, Mediapart said.

Cahuzac furiously denied the allegations. In a four-month campaign to protest his innocence, he lied to parliament saying he had never hidden money in Switzerland. He went on all major television stations to continue this lie and was said to have reassuredHollande that he was telling the truth. The government stood by him for months including when he resigned, claiming he was innocent and needed to devote himself to fight the bogus allegations.

Cahuzac made a sudden sensational public confession in April 2013, saying he did have the account; had defrauded the taxman and had been “caught in a spiral of lies”.

The details of his personal tax evasion now threaten to emerge. The court is expected to hear how the money came not just from Cahuzac’s hair-transplant operations but also from pharmaceutical companies who paid him for consultancy work and lobbying after he left an earlier job at the health ministry before Hollande’s election. There are also expected to be details on how he withdrew cash from the account – before he became minister – by calling a bank contact and using a pseudonym. He would use the name “Birdie” to meet a representative who would hand over vast sums in an envelope, the French weekly L’Obs has reported.

The question remains about how much was known of Cahuzac’s activities in the highest levels of French politics and how protected he felt. Hollande claimed after Cahuzac’s confession that he knew nothing of the account.

Patricia Ménard, Cahuzac’s ex-wifewho worked with him at his clinic, is also on trial, along with financial advisers and a Geneva bank. Ménard and Cahuzac have been in a bitter and protracted divorce battle but she is also accused of holding an undisclosed account abroad. Cahuzac is also accused of hiding revenue from his hair-transplant operations in separate bank accounts belonging to his mother.

After the Cahuzac scandal broke, Hollande reinforced measures on financial corruption, ethics and transparency in political life.

At the opening of the trial, which is scheduled to run until 18 February, Cahuzac’s lawyers said they would lodge an appeal for a postponement pending the resolution of technical legal questions.