France’s former budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac has given Swiss authorities permission to pass his bank account details to judges in Paris who are investigating him, the office of Geneva’s public prosecutor said in a statement on Wednesday.
The statement said Geneva prosecutor Yves Bertossa had acted on a French request to obtain documents from UBS and Reyl & Cie, the two banks involved. It said Cahuzac had had a Swiss account since 1992.
On Tuesday, Cahuzac was placed under formal investigation after admitting to holding a secret bank account containing around €600,000 (CHF730,000).
He apologised for the embarrassment he had caused the French socialist government headed by President Francois Hollande, saying that he was «devastated by remorse».
«I was caught in a spiral of lies and lost my way,» he wrote in a blog on Tuesday, April 2. «It was an unspeakable mistake to think that I could avoid confronting a past that I wanted to consider behind me. I will now face this reality with all transparency.»
«Unpardonable moral error»
While Cahuzac failed to mention the source of the secret funds, it has been widely reported that he had held a UBS account. Last month, the Geneva prosecutor’s office was asked to assist in the French probe, days after Cahuzac stepped down from office.
Hollande responded to the admission of guilt by calling it an «unpardonable moral error». Cahuzac had been one of the most vocal members of Hollande’s administration in speaking out against tax havens.
The French regime has made a point of targeting tax cheats and announced plans earlier this year to crack down on wealthy citizens who live in Switzerland to avoid higher French taxes.
News of Cahuzac’s alleged secret Swiss bank account was first aired last December by the French investigative website Mediapart. After threatening to sue the website for defamation, Cahuzac made his confession to investigating magistrates on Tuesday.