PARIS: A senior French cabinet minister resigned Tuesday after reports accused him of extravagant spending, including on luxury dinners, but lashed out at what he termed a "media lynching."
Environment Minister Francois de Rugy has been under unrelenting pressure for a week after the Mediapart website accused him of hosting friends to opulent meals, complete with lobster and vintage wines, while he was speaker of parliament.
"The attacks and media lynching targeting my family force me to take the necessary step back," said de Rugy, who also held the post of minister of state which made him the number two in government after Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
"The effort required to defend my name means that I am not able to serenely and efficiently carry out my mission. I presented my resignation to the prime minister this morning," he added.
Rugy lashed out at Mediapart, which has repeatedly published stories that have rattled the French elite since it was established in 2008.
He said he had filed a legal complaint against the left-wing publication for "defamation", accusing it of a desire "to harm, smear and destroy."
President Emmanuel Macron, in his first reaction to the revelations, said Monday he had asked Philippe for "full clarity" as he took decisions not "based on revelations but facts".
Macron, who is keen to promote his green credentials, has struggled to find a long-term occupant for the environment ministry.
De Rugy last year succeeded Macron's first appointment to the job, Nicolas Hulot, a celebrity environmentalist who quit after saying that his cabinet colleagues were doing too little to tackle climate change.
French minister resigns in luxury dinners scandal
French minister resigns in luxury dinners scandal
- The Mediapart website accused him of hosting friends to opulent meals
Trump calls for one year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent
- Trump says Americans have been ‘ripped off’ by credit card companies
- Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about rates
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent starting on January 20 but he did not provide details on how his plan will come to fruition or how he planned to make companies comply.
Trump also made the pledge during the campaign for the 2024 election that he won but analysts dismissed it at the time saying that such a step required congressional approval.
Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican Parties have raised concerns about high rates and have called for those to be addressed. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
There have been some legislative efforts in Congress to pursue such a proposal but they are yet to become law and in his post Trump did not offer explicit support to any specific bill.
Opposition lawmakers have criticized Trump, a Republican, for not having delivered on his campaign pledge.
“Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10 percent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without providing more details.
“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies,” Trump added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on details of the call from Trump, but said on social media without elaborating that the president was capping the rates.
Some major US banks and credit card issuers like American Express, Capital One Financial Corp, JPMorgan , Citigroup and Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, a fierce Trump critic, and Senator Josh Hawley, who belongs to Trump’s Republican Party, have previously introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent for five years. This bill explicitly directs credit card companies to limit rates as part of broader consumer relief legislation.
Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna have also introduced a House of Representatives bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent, reflecting cross-aisle interest in addressing high rates.
Billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump in the last elections, said the US president’s call was a “mistake.”
“This is a mistake,” Ackman wrote on X.
“Without being able to charge rates adequate enough to cover losses and earn an adequate return on equity, credit card lenders will cancel cards for millions of consumers who will have to turn to loan sharks for credit at rates higher than and on terms inferior to what they previously paid.”
Last year, the Trump administration moved to scrap a credit card late fee rule from the era of former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration had asked a federal court to throw out a regulation capping credit card late fees at $8, saying it agreed with business and banking groups that alleged the rule was illegal. A federal judge subsequently threw out the rule.
