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| Finance Minister Hervé Gaymard |
"I am aware of having committed blunders and in the first place a serious error of judgment concerning the condition of my official residence," Mr. Gaymard said in a statement, reiterating his pledge to pay back the government for renovations and other costs.
He added that he did not want the Republic or the government "to be damaged because of me."
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin accepted the resignation, saying in a statement: "I pay tribute to a responsible man who served the government's work with talent, competence and devotion. I regret the departure from the government of a friend who will keep my confidence and my affection, today and tomorrow."
It was not known when the government would name a replacement.
Mr. Gaymard, 44, and his wife, Clara, 45, France's ambassador-at-large to attract foreign investment, broke no laws in choosing a 6,500-square-foot duplex apartment close to the Elyseé Palace that would accommodate them and their eight children.
Under French tradition, the government provides free housing for ministers in their ministries or other state-owned buildings or in rental apartments.
Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin lives with his wife and three children in a 2,100-square-foot apartment in the Interior Ministry.
Defense Minister Michéle Alliot-Marie lives in a 750-square-foot apartment in the Defense Ministry, although she spends a considerable amount of time with a companion at his country house in Rueil Malmaison outside of Paris.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier lives with his wife and their three children in a 2,150-square-foot apartment in the 19th-century Foreign Ministry building.
But revelations about the cost of The Gaymards' apartment, first disclosed nine days ago in the muckraking weekly newspaper, Le Canard Enchaîné coupled with Mr. Gaymard's less than truthful explanations spiraled into a political scandal that was deeply embarrassing to President Jacques Chirac's center-right government.
It is not known whether Mrs. Gaymard, who was traveling in the United States and could not be reached for comment, will also resign from her job.
Reached by Agence France-Presse in Los Angeles, where she is traveling for her job, Mrs. Gaymard said: "We were wrong. That's sure." She added that they chose the apartment quickly because they were so pressed for time, but that in retrospect, "We should have asked questions."
Paris is suffering from a severe housing shortage amid skyrocketing prices for both renters and buyers. The cost of the apartment is the equivalent of the annual minimum wage for a worker in France.
So there was little public sympathy for what was perceived as extravagance and hypocrisy by the man who is supposed to be the country's champion of public spending cuts.
In his first major news conference as Finance Minister on Feb. 8, Mr. Gaymard said that unless the government reins in spending, "We're going to hit the wall."
On a talk show a few days later, he said, "We need to detox ourselves from public spending."
France, Europe's third-largest economy, is reeling from a public deficit that violates European Union rules, 10 percent unemployment (a five-year high) and public distrust of government manifested in street protests over its economic reforms.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development announced last week that France could do "much better" than a growth rate of about two percent a year if the country carried out structural reforms.
The government must now name its fourth Finance Minister in less than a year, at a time when it is preparing for a referendum on the European Union constitution later this year and must present an image of strength to French voters.
It was Mr. Gaymard's loyalty to Mr. Chirac that catapulted him from Agriculture Minister to Finance Minister after presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy resigned from the post in November.
With his smooth, non-confrontational approach, Mr. Gaymard had been confident that he would survive. He told the newspaper Le Figaro in an interview published on Thursday that he enjoyed the confidence of Mr. Chirac and his government.
Even in his brief statement today, Mr. Gaymard sought to defend himself. "I have put an end, without delay, to this situation and will take full responsibility for the financial consequences," he said. "Despite this, my family has suffered serious harassment in the past few days."
Earlier, he had said that as someone who worked "120 hours a week," he hadn't had the time to check on the amount of the rent for the apartment.
Indeed, as additional details about the Gaymards apartment spilled out, the cries in the news media and among the government's political opponents for Mr. Gaymard's resignation grew louder.
In addition to the high rent, there was an additional $3,300 a month for maintenance and three parking spaces, $42,000 to renovate the apartment and the parking area and $16,000 for real estate fees. He has pledged to pay back the costs incurred for renting the apartment, including the renovation costs and fees for breaking the lease.
What was particularly unsettling for many of the public critics was his claim in a magazine interview that if he had been the son of rich bourgeois and not of a shoe repairman, there never would have been a problem because he would own his own apartment.
It turns out that Mr. Gaymard owns a 2,150-square-foot apartment on Boulevard St.-Michel in the heart of the Latin Quarter that he rents out for $3,000 a month.
Even today, the left-leaning daily Liberation reported that the minister's properties also include two small apartments and a house in the Savoy region that he inherited and another house in Brittany that he bought last year.
The newspaper also said that Mrs. Gaymard, who runs a government agency that promotes foreign investment in France, rejected moving the family into one of the two apartments in the Finance Ministry because she felt that neither of them was large enough and they were too far from the children's schools.
The government has created a complicated formula that assigns a certain square footage for private rentals depending on the family's size, and either apartment would have qualified as large enough.
Mr. Sarkozy, a rival of Mr. Chirac who now heads their ruling UMP party, stands to gain politically from the scandal. Today he called Mr. Gaymard's resignation "responsible, dignified, respectable and honest."
Sources : http://www.nytimes.com
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