Scandal forces another Hollande minister to quit

Kader Arif, a junior minister for veteran affairs, became the latest member of Hollande’s government to step down under a cloud of suspicion in what has been a year of political and personal calamities for the most unpopular French president in modern history.

An investigation was launched in September in the south-western city of Toulouse into whether two event management companies run by Arif’s brother and nephew benefited from favouritism in the awarding of public contracts worth millions of euros.

Arif “handed in his resignation in order to provide all the details necessary to establish the truth in the preliminary investigation by financial prosecutors in which he is implicated,” the presidency said in a statement .... http://www.thelocal.fr