For the first time, the French state budget provides credits to return to the population assets seized in so-called "ill-gotten gains" cases of foreign leaders, according to a document consulted by AFP, concretizing a mechanism voted in 2021.
In a document annexed to the 2024 finance bill, the government earmarks 6.1 million euros for the restitution of ill-gotten assets to the countries of origin of these looted funds. The budget line has existed since the 2022 budget but remained empty until now.
This sum is “following a first payment from transfers” of assets seized – cars and luxury items – in the “Obiang case”, according to the terms used in the government document about Teodorin Obiang, eldest son of the president of Equatorial Guinea. Vice-president of the country, Teodorin Obiang was definitively sentenced in July 2021 to three years in prison and a fine of 30 million euros for embezzlement of public funds.
According to the budget document, the envelope of 6 million euros is “the subject of reflection within the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs prior to the start of negotiations with the Equatorial Guinean authorities on the subject of the allocation of this sum”.
Finance development projects?
“We are very happy that there is a budget line,” reacted to AFP Benjamin Guy, from the NGO Transparency International, who had pushed for the creation of this restitution mechanism, definitively adopted in July 2021 in Parliament. But with 6 million euros, “we are very far from counting the ill-gotten goods confiscated in France”. For Equatorial Guinea, “there is the private mansion on Avenue Foch [in Paris], but where Equatorial Guinea has set up its embassy,” he emphasizes.
The restitution mechanism provides that the “confiscating country and the country of origin of the funds agree to use these sums for a project of general interest (…), a principle of transparency and accountability. There is no question that these sums will finance a highway between the presidential palace and the nearest airport,” insists the NGO.
According to a circular signed by Elisabeth Borne in November 2022, after a period of two years, if there is no agreement with the country concerned, France can decide alone on the terms of restitution.
According to Transparency International, “Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States are also negotiating the return of funds to Equatorial Guinea.” The NGO would like coordination to finance larger development projects.
