French Labor Minister Eric Woerth denied that he helped his wife get a job as a financial adviser to the nation’s richest woman and said he wouldn’t resign.

“I never asked that my wife be hired,” Woerth said in an interview today on Europe 1 radio. “She has her own professional life, and I never have asked anyone to hire her in her 25-year career. I have no intention to resign.”

Florence Woerth worked as a financial adviser to L’Oreal SA heiress Liliane Bettencourt before stepping down from the job last month amid a probe by authorities into possible tax evasion. In an interview with Europe 1 on June 23, she said she was unaware of any tax irregularities.

French daily Le Monde reported last week that Patrick de Maistre, Bettencourt’s chief financial adviser, told police he hired Florence Woerth after Eric Woerth, who was then budget minister, asked him to meet her and give her advice on her career.


Agencies

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