Paris, shadows on ministers

PARIS – The French judges, despite the approaching of the important electoral appointments of next spring, continue their investigations on politicians, whether they are right-wing or left-wing. Two prominent ministers of the government of Lionel Jospin, Hubert Vedrine, Head of Foreign Affairs, and Pierre Moscovici, Minister of European Affairs, remained “entangled” yesterday, albeit only as witnesses, in an investigation into a huge “fiscal favor” “that would have been granted to the arms dealer Pierre Falcone, central character of the so-called” Angola Gate “. The judges investigating the scandal involving Christophe Mitterrand, eldest son of the former president, and Jacques Attali, for complicity in arms trafficking his former advisor in the 1980s, asked to hear the two ministers to see if it was true, as had been rumored last November, which somehow helped Falcone overcome his tax problems. That is, if the Foreign Minister has actually intervened as he says in his favor to cancel the tax debit of over three hundred million euros that is imposed on his company ZtsOzos. According to these rumors, Attali, who had been under investigation since last March, allegedly interceded with Vedrine and Moscovici because, due to his intercessions, he would have received the equivalent of about 230 thousand euros from the arms dealer. Last November, at the appearance of the first rumors about the investigation that called him into question, Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine had reacted with a sharp denial. “I never intervened in any form in favor of Signor Falcone, whom I never knew”. Even Jacques Attali at the time denied any intervention by the Foreign Minister. He also claimed that the money received from Falcone referred to a series of economic consultations he had provided to the company ZtsOzos. But for the judges who have decided to listen to the two ministers this thesis would not seem too convincing. For the investigators the remuneration of those consultations would be only a way to mask the actual reason. In other words, they continue to suspect that the money was only the price paid by Falcone for his intercessions with Vedrine.

February 9 2002