Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 4 July 2010 - 7:52pm
Two French ministers resigned Sunday after rows over spending thousands of euros of taxpayers' money on a private jet and cigars at a time when budget cuts are hitting the public.
Development Minister Alain Joyandet and Christian Blanc, a junior minister tasked with overseeing development of a Greater Paris region, both tendered their resignation, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said.
"The president and the prime minister have accepted their resignations," a statement from the Elysee palace said.
In March, Joyandet was criticised for spending 116,500 euros (157,000 dollars) to hire a private plane to take him to Martinique for an emergency meeting on the earthquake in Haiti.
Blanc came under fire in June after it emerged that he had spent 12,000 euros (14,700 dollars) of taxpayers' money on cigars.
Last month, Joyandet had once again come under fire over claims that he was granted a permit illegally to build an expansion to his house in the chic Riviera resort of Saint Tropez.
Joyandet wrote on his blog that "as a man of honour, I cannot accept being the victim of allegations. After much thought, I have decided to leave the government."
"Not one euro of public money was used toward my personal wealth or toward those of my close ones," he wrote.
The resignations came as Sarkozy's government was struggling to weather a crisis over Labour Minister Eric Woerth's ties to France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.
Woerth's name came up in conversations secretly taped by Bettencourt's butler in which she was allegedly plotting to evade taxes on her fortune at a time when his wife worked for a firm managing the billionaire's estate.
Sarkozy on Monday ordered his prime minister to crack down on government perks by restricting use of official planes and cars, and scrapping parties.
The president cancelled his own traditional Bastille Day garden party on July 14 to set an example.
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