“The worm that rots the fruits of democracy”: Bruno Le Maire is preparing new measures to combat corruption

A new arsenal for a better fight against invisible evil. The government is working on “new measures” to combat corruption, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, said this Saturday on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

Since the election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017, “we have strengthened our systems for preventing and detecting integrity violations thanks to compliance programs carried out by the French Anti-Corruption Agency (AFA),” Bruno Le Mayor wrote on the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Event. Corruption Day, set by the UN for December 9. Corruption “is a worm that can rot the fruits of democracy,” the minister also wrote.

“We want to continue working in this direction. Early next year we will have the opportunity to announce new measures in this regard,” he concluded, together with Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti and Public Accounts Minister Thomas Cazenave.

“The French are asking for more”

In an online survey conducted in late October among 1,500 people and published this Saturday, 87% of respondents said they have a feeling that people exercising power or important responsibilities are corrupt, be it minor (44%) or major ( 43%) part. of them.

In this interactive Toluna/Harris survey conducted for the Jean Jaurès Foundation and the Transparency France movement, more than a quarter of French people (26%) said they had already been personally asked to give a sum of money or a valuable gift to a public office to receive a service.”

“The French are clear: they are asking for more,” commented Patrick Lefas, president of Transparency International France, quoted in a press release from the anti-corruption movement. “More exemplary behavior, more transparency in public life, more resources for financial justice and more whistleblowers,” he listed.

“Change the existing legal arsenal”

In response to a question, Bruno Le Maire’s office said it was working “on measures to better prevent corruption in the business sector as well as in the public sector.”

“This could, for example, include strengthening the French Anti-Corruption Agency’s monitoring of certain sectors identified as sensitive, or raising the level of our requirements in terms of integrity violations by changing the existing legal arsenal,” we stated in more detail on the site. Bercy.

In 2016, the so-called Sapen Law 2, among other things, created the Convention of Judicial Public Interest (CJIP), which allows companies suspected of violating good faith to avoid criminal prosecution by paying a fine.

Since then, sanctions have been applied to twenty companies, including giants such as McDonald’s, Google and LVMH, although these agreed fines are neither an admission of guilt nor a conviction.

Fighting “low-level” corruption

In response to a question in Le Monde this Saturday, AFA director Isabelle Geguso called on us to now “go further in raising awareness among small and medium-sized businesses” “not subject to the Sapin 2 law.”

In the future, she also wants to fight “low-level” corruption. We are talking, for example, about paying “several hundred or thousand euros” to a government official for reviewing confidential files, she explained. Since 2016, she said, the number of cases related to this “low-intensity” corruption has “increased by 46%.”