Nov 3, 2009, 15:04 GMT
Paris - French Sports Minister Rama Yade may be on her way out because of her public disagreement with a new law eliminating a tax break for top athletes, the online edition of the weekly Le Point reported Tuesday.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon gave Yade a public dressing down at a meeting of parliamentarians from the ruling UMP party, saying: 'The sports minister lacked government solidarity. I told her that. Consequences must be drawn.'
Last week, in a statement, Yade criticized the annulment of a 2004 law that exonerated athletes from paying certain social charges totalling up to 30 per cent of their salaries.
'This annulment would be dangerous because it would immediately damage the competitiveness of French sports,' she said.
Since that declaration, she has been criticized for disloyalty by other members of the government, but Fillon's frank statement suggested her days in the government were numbered.
An unnamed advisor to the prime minister told Le Point that Fillon's action probably reflected the feelings of President Nicolas Sarkozy.
One of the country's most popular politicians, Yade has a particularly high profile because she was one of the first-ever female minority ministers in the French government.
But this was not the first time Yade made herself a target of Sarkozy's displeasure. In 2007, when she was junior minister for human rights, she publicly criticized the visit to France of Libyan strongman Moamer Gaddafi.
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