Ex-French PM ‘picks up €100,000 for a day’s work’

France's flamboyant former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin was allowed by the government to return to work for one day in the country's diplomatic service after 20 years away, so he would qualify for a €100,000 retirement package, a media report claimed on Wednesday.

Published: 12 March 2014 09:37 CET

Ex-French PM 'picks up €100,000 for a day's work'

Former French PM Dominique de Villepin, who went back to work for one day to qualify for a €100,000 retirement windfall. Photo: Eric Feferberg/AFP

France's Socialist government allowed conservative ex-prime minster Dominique de Villepin, 60, to return for one day's work in order to qualify for a €100,000 retirement windfall, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

Sources at the French foreign ministry told the paper that the charismatic former diplomat, who served as prime minister from 2005 until 2007 under the leadership of Jaques Chirac, returned to the diplomatic service – which he left in 2004 – in September for a day in order to receive the pay-off, equivalent to $138,500.

The British paper said it was unclear exactly what entitled Villepin to the payment and that "the exact details are shrouded in a French bureaucratic device called the 'career termination mechanism'."

The sources added that the move was likely approved by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and was not illegal. The ministry has so far not answered any questions about the pay-out.

According to the Daily Telegraph, officials are angry at the pay-off, which comes amid President Francois Hollande's unpopular austerity drive.

A spokesman for Villepin told the paper there had been an "administrative error which Mr Villepin has already asked to be rectified by the relevant authorities as soon as it was noticed", but did not explain what that error was, or whether the money had been returned.

A ministry spokesman added there had been "no discretionary or preferential treatment" for Villepin, who joined the diplomatic service after graduating from the elite French university ENA, where he studied with the President François Hollande.

Since his time as prime minister Villepin, who is most famous outside France for his 2003 speech at the UN against the Iraq war, has been on the fringes of mainstream politics.

He was an ardent critic of Nicolas Sarkozy and ran for president in the 2012 race as an alternative right wing option, before being forced to withdraw due to a lack of support.

Since then Villepin has headed his own international consulting firm, which pulled in a cool €1,676,900 last year, the Telegraph said.

French magazine L’Express valued his personal wealth at €4 million in 2012.

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France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.