The French prime minister, the man charged with sorting out the country’s financial woes, is €559 overdrawn at his bank, the latest register of ministers’ interests shows.
France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s current account is €559 in the red (although he has several savings accounts and owns two homes) while the Business Minister has assets worth €8.5 million – according to the government’s annual declaration of interests.
Every one of the 30 ministers in Lecornu’s government is obliged by France’s transparency laws to declare their interests and assets to the Haute Autorité pour la transparence de la vie publique (High Authority for Transparency in Public Life).
This is standard for members of the French government, as well as candidates who run for president. The declarations go into the fine detail of each politician’s financial life, including savings, property, life insurance and even whether they own a car.
Those declarations are published on the authority’s website.
Here’s what the latest publications reveal about the current government;
Prime minister – In his declaration Lecornu, 39, revealed he took out a mortgage of €639,500 in 2018, of which €443,660 remains outstanding.
He owns a 254 square metre family home in Eure (Normandy) which, following renovations costing €165,000, is valued at €770,000, as well as a much smaller property in the same département that he has had nue-propriété rights over since 2023 – a style of ownership transfer normally used by parents to gift property to their children.
Justice Minister – Gérald Darmanin’s declared assets are more modest. As well as life insurance worth a little more than €11,500, two savings accounts and three small chequing accounts, he also owns a 95m2 apartment in northern France.
Before joining the government he was mayor of Tourcoing, near Lille.
Interior Minister – Laurent Nunez, meanwhile, has a savings portfolio worth over €200,000, as well as a house in the Cher and an apartment in the Var.
Trade Minister – At the higher end of the asset value spectrum, Serge Papin, Minister for SMEs, Trade, and Purchasing Power has assets worth more than €8.5 million, held mostly through a holding company he owns, but also including a 50 percent share of an apartment in Charente-Maritime worth about €1.5 million.
Economy Minister – Roland Lescure co-owns four properties valued at €3.7 million.
Public Accounts Minister – Amélie de Montchalin, has substantial savings and owns a large house in Paris worth more than €1 million, and an even larger property in Essonne.
Cars – One common denominator from all these disclosures is that most government ministers do not own cars — Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin is a notable exception, declaring a Renault and a Jeep bought for a total €34,000.
This makes the Paris-ministers typical – around two thirds of Parisians do not own a car, relying instead on the city’s public transport system, or on bikes or their own two feet, to get around.
Salaries – the salaries of French politicians are also public information.
Lecornu (and his boss Emmanuel Macron, since the president and the prime minister are paid the same) take home €16,000 per month, pre tax.
Ministers get €10,700 gross per month while junior ministers get €10,200. Members of the parliament or the senate with no ministerial responsibilities get a basic salary of €7,600 per month, re tax.
