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Joyandet under fire over private jet spend

French Secretary of State for Co-operation and Francophonie Alain Joyandet has said he does not feel he should resign after spending 116,500 euros to fly to Martinique on a private jet. The Mediapart news website was the first to reveal that Joyandet hired a Falcon plane from Portuguese company Masterjet to fly to the Caribbean island for a conference on Haiti last Monday.  

France's Secretary of State for Co-operation and Francophone Joyandet arrives at a weekly cabinet meeting in Paris on 24 March, 2010
France's Secretary of State for Co-operation and Francophone Joyandet arrives at a weekly cabinet meeting in Paris on 24 March, 2010 Reuters
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Joyandet returned to Paris in time to attend a cabinet meeting at 10am on Wednesday. A minister of state does not normally have to attend such events but Joyandet’s aides said he wanted to be present because it was the first meeting since French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s post-election reshuffle.

The jet Joyandet travelled on can carry up to 14 people and he travelled with a security guard and two advisors, according to Le Parisien. But a spokesman said that hiring a government plane would have cost almost as much - 100,000 euros - and had to be booked in advance.

The meeting in Fort-de-France was designed to prepare a donors’ conference on Wednesday in New York to raise funds to help Haiti recover from the 12 January earthquake.

On Tuesday Joyandet told Le Parisien that he didn’t think he was a “big-spending minister”.

The 56-year-old also rejected suggestions that he should resign over the issue.

“I ask to be judged on how I’ve handled myself in office over a long period and not just on a plane,” he told the French daily.

This isn’t the first time a French minister has come under fire for their spending. Christian Estrosi, then the Secretary of State for Overseas Departments, came in for criticism in January 2008 when he hired a private jet to return to France from the United States. The one-way trip cost the taxpayer 138,000 euros.

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