The fallout from France’s controversial new immigration law continues – junior minister Agnès Firmin Le Bodo took over the health portfolio following the resignation of Aurélien Rousseau, who quit in protest over the bill. 

On Friday, the new health minister confirmed that she is under investigation.

According to Mediapart, Firmin Le Bodo received €20,000 worth of gifts – including watches, bottles of wine and magnums of Champagne and gift boxes – from Urgo Laboratories between 2015 and 2020, while she was working as a pharmacist. She did not declare these gifts, it said. 

The minister “is the target of a judicial investigation opened in June 2023 for receiving gifts, without declaring them”, it said.

Firmin Le Bodo told France Bleu Normandie that  “in my capacity as a pharmacist, an investigation is indeed underway”, and that she expects to meet with authorities “in the coming days”.

Meanwhile, the public prosecutor’s office has merely confirmed that an investigation has been opened into “unauthorised collection by a healthcare professional of benefits provided by a person producing or marketing healthcare products”. 

In January 2023, Urgo Laboratories was fined €1,125,000, of which €625,000 was suspended, for offering gifts to pharmacists in return for giving up commercial discounts.

According to Mediapart, “a second phase of the case” has begun, with the courts looking into all the pharmacists who received gifts.

In Normandy, the Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF) is handling some 40 cases.