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From the Opalesque team: There is a wide debate on political funding in France, arising from the discoveries of what some politicians had done to circumvent a law restricting funding amounts - as indeed some French politicians went to London to raise money from hedge funds using "micro-political parties" as recipients. And this debate arose from the Bettencourt case through an indirect link, in which the billionaire is accused of tax evasion. The link was that some of her money was managed by the wife of the minister implicated in the macro-party fund raising. Although some of Bettencourt's money was placed in hedge funds, no hedge fund acted illegally in this entire story.

The large French centre-right political party called UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) is alleged to have obtained illegal financing via Employment Minister Eric Woerth, who used some of the funds for Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign in 2007. He supposedly took the opportunity of an official trip to London to meet with bankers during a diner-debate in Mayfair and seek funding.

Also, Laurent Wauquiez, French State Secretary for Employment, according to weekly Le Point, obtained financing from hedge fund managers for his micro-political party (called "Nouvelle Oxygene") when visiting London.

The increase in the number of micro-political parties in France shows that they might serve to attract more political funding than is allowed - indeed, one cannot gi......................

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