Finance minister denies involvement in company's alleged accounting irregularities

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2005

PARIS (AFP) — The French speciality chemicals group Rhodia is under investigation for accounting irregularities that allegedly took place while French Finance Minister Thierry Breton was a member of the board, a judicial source said.

A separate source close to the affair told AFP that the French financial markets authority AMF, which has completed its own probe of Rhodia's accounts, found irregularities at the end of 2002, but stressed that they did not concern Breton, who had already left the board.

The French finance minister, speaking from Japan where he is on an official visit with President Jacques Chirac, denied any knowledge of wrongdoing at Rhodia while he was a member of its board of directors.

Breton told AFP: "During this period, nothing that...