FRANCE’S new interim health minister was caught in a row yesterday over accusations she failed to declare gifts sent her as a professional pharmacist.

Investigative website Mediapart reported that pharmaceuticals group Urgo had sent Agnes Firmin Le Bodo luxury gifts worth more than €20,000, which she had failed to declare.

She had received the gifts, including watches, bottles of wine and magnums of champagne, between 2015 and 2020 at her offices in the northern port of Le Havre, Mediapart added.

Firmin Le Bodo was only appointed to her ministerial post on Wednesday.

Yesterday, she confirmed to her local radio station France Bleu Normandie that an investigation was underway. Whatever else she had to say would be to the competent authorities, she added.

The city’s prosecutor Bruno Dieudonne, while not identifying the people involved, confirmed to AFP on Thursday that an investigation had been opened following on from the conviction of Urgo laboratories in January.

They were fined €1.125 million, a little over half of which was suspended, for having offered pharmacists gifts in exchange for them not offering Urgo products at discounted prices.

Firmin Le Bodo was appointed after health minister Aurelien Rousseau resigned earlier this week in protest at the government’s controversial immigration law, which was backed by the far right.

Since the start of French President Emmanuel Macron’s second term, the government has lost three health ministers. – AFP, December 23, 2023.