Government backs Woerth, despite party treasurer resignation

“Four weeks of extremely violent attacks, in the past that has always ended in a resignation,” Fillon told the weekly meeting of MPs who back his government.

But this time, he said, the government has refused to back down and the minister stays.

French politics no stranger to scandals

President Nicolas Sarkozy defended Woerth on television Monday night and vowed to press on with moves to raise the retirement age, despite opposition from trade unions and political parties.

Fillon, like Sarkozy, insisted that accusations concerning Woerth and the president’s relations with L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt are unfounded.

“The people who started these rumours had one aim,” Fillon said. “That aim was to stop the government and the majority in its reforming drive.”

“This is a great day, you will remember this cabinet meeting,” Sarkozy promised his ministers, according to one of those present, after they backed the pensions plan.

The bill now has to go to parliament. The government hopes that it will be passed by the end of October.

Will the Bettencourt scandal help the far right?

Despite his colleagues’ pugnacious attitude, Woerth on Tuesday resigned as UMP treasurer, saying that Sarkozy had advised him to do so.

The Socialists seized on the move as an admission that there was some basis in complaints that he was in charge of chasing tax dodgers while his wife worked on Bettencourt’s apparently questionable finances.

If Sarkozy advised Woerth to stand down, argued Socialist First Secretary François Hollande, “that means that having been UMP treasurer and Budget Minister clearly posed a problem and notably the question of conflict of interest”.

On Monday evening police searched the home of Bettencourt in connection with tax evasion accusations and that of François-Marie Banier, who is accused of manipulating her for personal gain.