Being French finance minister can be a perilous position these days.
A housing scandal chased former minister Herve Gaymard from office. Now eyebrows are being raised about his successor, 50-year-old corporate wonderkind Thierry Breton, after reported allegations of illegal price fixing among France's three top mobile phone operators -- one of which Breton headed before assuming his government post.
Could Breton's be the next head to roll?
"No one has asked for his resignation," the conservative Le Figaro newspaper reported Thursday, "but that's approaching."
Breton wasted no time denying any role in the alleged impropriety, first reported Wednesday in the French investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine. The newspaper included lengthy extracts of a report by the French fraud and competition watchdog DGCCRF, describing monthly meetings in which representatives from the three companies traded sensitive market information.
"The inquiry concerns only the period between 1997 and 2002," the minister's office said in a statement published in French newspapers Thursday. "Thierry Breton didn't arrive at France Telecom until October 21, 2002."
Not so, according to published extracts of the report, which suggested communication among the three mobile phone giants lasted until the end of 2003. That is, well into Breton's tenure as head of France Telecom, one of the companies implicated in the report. Reportedly meeting with France Telecom officials were counterparts from rivals SFR and Bouygues Telecom.
Nonetheless, Breton again distanced himself from the allegations in a Thursday interview with France Info radio. "If there's something to this, there must be sanctions," he added of the unfolding scandal.
Breton also refuted any possible conflict of interest in the inquiry, which will be carried out within his umbrella ministry of finance, economy and industry. It was deputy Industry minister, Francois Loos, who was directly responsible for telecommunications, Breton told the radio.
Yet in a March interview on France 2 TV -- and in apparent contradiction to his Thursday statement -- Breton noted that he indeed presided over telecommunications issues.
Like Breton, the three companies have also issued rapid denials of wrongdoing.
"The assertions that the (mobile phone) operators held secret monthly reunions are pure fantasy," SFR said in remarks published in Le Figaro Thursday.
The price-fixing reports have drawn sharp criticism, not only from opposition politicians but also from members of Breton's conservative Union for a Popular Movement party.
"Thierry Breton was not at the head of France Telecom at the time of the acts," former UMP Industry minister Patrick Devedjian told Le Figaro. "But morally his position is one of a conflict of interest, since he maintained sympathy and friendship for people who worked at France Telecom."
"His status as former president of France Telecom could raise suspicion about the way he manages the telecommunications dossier. In addition, he doesn't defend competition enough," Devedjian added.
For his part, Socialist Party lawmaker Henri Emmanuelli again raised conflict-of- interest questions, noting that officials charged with investigating the matter worked under Breton.
The mobile phone furor is not the first scandal to hit the Finance Ministry this year. In February, former Finance Minister Gaymard resigned in the wake of an outcry over his lavish housing perks. The government perks -- a 6,400 square-foot apartment off the Champs Elysees in Paris -- were legal enough.
But they came to light -- again through an expose by Le Canard Enchaine -- at a time when ordinary Parisians were having a hard time finding affordable housing in the city. And when Gaymard himself had been calling for curbs on government spending.
The tipping point came with Gaymard's reported remarks to Paris-Match magazine, in which the minister noted he came from a humble background and implied he owned no property. It didn't take long for the French press to report that in fact Gaymard not only owned a four-room apartment in another exclusive Paris neighborhood, but also two houses and two other apartments in different parts of France.
Breton, too, has been implicated in a separate inquiry involving another company he was involved in. In June, investigators searched Breton's office in relation to alleged accounting irregularities and insider trading at the French chemical company, Rhodia SA.
Breton, who served on Rhodia's board of directors between 1999 and 2002, has again denied any involvement into suspected impropriety at the firm.
