A former French budget minister will appear in court on charges of tax fraud and money laundering that forced him to dramatically resign three years ago in the first political scandal under President Francois Hollande.
The trial of Jerome Cahuzac, once a champion in the fight against tax evasion, starts today in the main hearing room of the Paris criminal court in the presence of dozens of journalists and a large audience.
The 63-year-old is accused of financing a lavish lifestyle by fraudulently concealing 687,000 euros (USD 765,000) of income from French tax authorities in 2009-2012 and laundering money in 2003-2013 through foreign bank accounts based in tax havens, including Switzerland, Panama, the Seychelles and Singapore.
The Socialist, once considered a rising star in French politics, faces up to seven years in prison and at least a 1 million-euro fine if he is convicted of tax fraud.
The trial's opening day attracted demonstrators who arrived at the courthouse carrying nearly 200 chairs they say they took from banks they accuse of participating in tax evasion.
Cahuzac's lawyers have said they would use the first hearing today to ask the court to postpone the trial, arguing a defendant shouldn't be under both a criminal and a tax procedure in the same time.
If the court accepts Cahuzac's legal argument, the trial could be postponed for months.
After strongly denying any fraud for months and publicly lying to the Parliament, on television, to the French people and to his government colleagues, he eventually admitted his wrongdoing in a statement in April 2013, saying he had been "trapped in a lying spiral" and that he was "devastated by remorse."
On trial alongside Cahuzac are his former wife; a banker; a legal adviser; and bank Reyl, a respectable but little known Swiss establishment, accused of tax fraud and/or money laundering.
For his transactions with bank Reyl, Cahuzac used a codename, Birdie, in a nod to his passion for golf.
Ex-wife Patricia Menard, a 60-year-old dermatologist, is accused of hiding 2.5 million euros (USD 2.8 million) from the French tax authorities until 2013 and laundering money in the British tax haven of the Isle of Man and in Switzerland, allowing her to buy two London apartments estimated at around 3 million euros overall. Menard already paid 2.17 million euros in back taxes to the French tax authorities last year. Menard and Cahuzac divorced last November.
Before being appointed budget minister in the first Hollande government in May 2012, Cahuzac was the leading tax specialist for the Socialist Party.
