The French Parliament will vote on a law which will make it possible to return the money of ill-gotten gains to the despoiled countries, via development aid.
It was undoubtedly one of the heresies of the French system: when movable or immovable property had been acquired by rulers who embezzled public funds from their country, France could not repatriate the funds. Money from ill-gotten goods was then incorporated into the general budget of… the French state. In May 2019, the French Senate had considered changing the law, so that the despoiled countries could benefit from it instead of the French Treasury. "There should be no sanctuary for those who steal from the poor," World Bank President Robert Zoellick a year earlier. It took nearly two years for measures to finally be taken in the land of human rights.
The bill "of programming relating to the development of solidarity and the fight against global inequalities" has indeed been examined at first reading in the National Assembly in recent days. The French deputies are unanimous: the money of ill-gotten goods must return to the despoiled countries and not remain in France. This is the subject of an amendment proposed by the deputy for the 9th constituency of French people living outside France, M'jid El Guerrab. The elected representative proposed that the funds resulting from the sale of ill-gotten goods be returned to the populations of the countries concerned.
Unanimous adoption of our amendment on the return of ill-gotten property!
A great moment of emotion. The just cause carried by African civil societies find a way out!
On both sides of the Mediterranean, the new generations are turning the page ... pic.twitter.com/0ZY0JZN8JF- M'jid El GUERRAB (@mjidelguerrab) February 19, 2021
Giving back to African populations
To do this, the deputy proposes that the value of goods seized by French justice be returned to the populations in the form of development aid. The amendment proposed by M'jid El Guerrab sets the record straight: France is a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, a text which asks States to allow the restitution of illicit assets to looted States. If the law is passed, it will be an important first step, but France wants to continue to keep control over how the funds will be used. "Each year, we will be able to watch action by action the use of these funds", indicates Hervé Berville, the rapporteur of the bill.
Some deputies believe that the law is also hybrid and calls for a stronger text. The CCFD, which denounces "Western complacency" vis-à-vis dictators, recalls that France "has not carried out any restitution measure", unlike Switzerland or the United States. The NGO estimates that, "at the quantitative level, the assets embezzled by dictators over the past decades represent, at the very least, between 100 and 180 billion dollars". Moreover, continues the CCFD, "the plundering of the wealth of the countries of the South took place with the complicity or at the initiative of the governments and companies of the North".
A law designed for Africa
It is therefore necessary that the returned funds do not follow the same path: the Sherpa association has launched numerous legal proceedings concerning ill-gotten property. Its founder, lawyer William Bourdon, believes that "The risk of money going back into corrupt hands via bogus NGOs which are flourishing in some countries is real." For him, "the restitution of ill-gotten goods requires absolute legal certainty". Discussions will continue, especially in the Senate, before the law is expected to be applied this year, the case of ill-gotten assets of the Obiang clan, confiscated by French justice, being currently brought before the French courts.
More than a text written to measure for the ill-gotten gains of the family of the President of Equatorial Guinea, this text mainly targets African countries. How to understand the message sent by the French justice, which estimates that the purchase of a Parisian building for 25 million euros by Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue is more reprehensible than the acquisition, a few kilometers away, by the crown prince Saudi Mohammed bin Salman from a castle estimated at 275 million euros? Saudi Arabia is said to have 6 million poor people. The future ill-gotten property law may well not affect the emirates, which easily mix public and private money, but only France's former African allies.