The top aide to France's housing minister resigned on Thursday over a scandal sparked by the disclosure that he is paying a heavily reduced rent on his large state-owned apartment in an expensive area of Paris.
Opposition leaders and even a member of the government had called for Jean-Paul Bolufer, chief of staff to Housing Minister Christine Boutin, to quit after a newspaper said he was paying a rent equivalent to that of social housing for his upmarket accommodation.
The report came at a bad time for the government which is facing protests over poor housing for low-income families and concern over France's homeless as winter sets in. "My chief of staff tendered his resignation this morning in order to be able to speak freely and so as not to let a useless controversy hinder the work I am leading," Boutin said in a statement on Thursday, just one day after the scandal erupted.
The government moved quickly to dampen the scandal, which has raised the controversial issue of perks granted to French officials and revealed splits within its own ranks. Just minutes after Boutin said in a live television interview she would wait until she had all the details before deciding what to do about Bolufer, Prime Minister Francois Fillon issued a statement saying he and Boutin agreed Bolufer should quit.
Boutin's statement followed shortly afterwards. Satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaine said on Wednesday Bolufer was paying less than half the market rate for his state-owned apartment in an expensive Paris neighbourhood, spending around 1200 euros ($1,724) per month, instead of the usual 3,800 to 5,700 euros for a flat of that category.
The case resembles that of Herve Gaymard, who resigned as finance minister in 2005 over a scandal about his state-paid luxury apartment, which cost the taxpayer 14,000 euros a month.
MANHUNT: "You can't be responsible for a public policy and not apply it to yourself. You can't lecture other people on morals and behave in a way that deviates from good morals," Francois Chereque, head of the moderate CFDT union, told iTele television.
The government is working to put in place a universal right to housing and has been critical of those who are in social housing when they earn too much to be entitled to it. Bolufer said last month it was a "scandal" that some people lived in social housing when they were not entitled to it and that some who should have social housing lived on the streets.
Bolufer said in an interview with newspaper Le Parisien that he had done nothing wrong. "My case resembles that of thousands of people who live in Paris," he said, adding he moved into the apartment owned by the Paris town hall in 1981, when he was working for then mayor Jacques Chirac.
"I am ready to discuss reviewing the conditions of my lease. Perhaps rents should be checked against income. But that is a social debate which must not take the form of a manhunt, of which I am a victim today," he said.
Asked about Bolufer's apartment, the government's High Commissioner for Active Solidaroty Against Poverty Martin Hirsch, himself a former campaigner for the homeless, said on Wednesday Bolufer should move out and resign.
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