PARIS, March 21 (Xinhua) -- French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux stepped down on Tuesday following media reports claiming that he had employed his student-age daughters as his parliament assistants.
The presidency office, the Elysee, said Le Roux resigned "in order to provide all the necessary clarifications to the truth's establishment..."
Junior foreign trade minister Matthias Fekl would replace him, it added in a statement.
Le Roux resignation came after financial prosecutors opened an inquiry over reports he paid his two daughters when they were still students from parliament fund for their work as his parliamentary aides.
"I affirm my honesty...I do not want at all costs that this debate made of amalgams which can harm the government," Le Roux was quoted as saying by local media.
"My responsibility is also to fully preserve the government action. That is why I have resigned," he added.
A show on TMC television on Monday revealed that ex-chief of the Socialist Party in France's lower house of parliament, hired his two daughters then aged 15 and 16 several times as parliamentary assistants during their school breaks.
For the 2009-2016 period, the minister's daughters had received 55,000 euros (59,438 U.S. dollars) for their work as their father's aides.
"My daughters have worked for me ... notably during school holidays, but never on a permanent basis," Le Roux was quoted as saying by Quotidien TV show.
"There is no amalgam (with the Fillon affair). We talk about a summer job with a parliamentarian. And ...when you have to do a number of parliamentary tasks, I think it's good to learn...," he said.
French lawmakers are allowed to hire family members as assistants. But it's illegal to pay them from the parliament's fund for fictitious jobs.
The scandal over Francois Fillon's hiring of wife and two of his children has made politicians employment of family members a hot topic that forced the conservative candidate to lose the status of the presidential favorite.
At few weeks ahead of presidential election, Le Roux affair may further weaken the ruling Socialists, with their nominee for presidential election Benoit Hamon, is struggling to fire up voters and revive flagging campaign dogged by a five-year governing period tainted by poor economic stock and controversial reforms. (1 euro = 1.08 U.S. dollar)
