It is the third high-profile case in recent months concerning politicians’ parliamentary assistants – taxpayer-funded jobs that the lawmakers themselves can assign.
Conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon has sunk in the polls and come under formal judicial investigation over allegations – which he denies – that his wife drew a salary as his parliamentary assistant for years without actually working.
Far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has meanwhile defied summonses from police and judges who want to question her about allegations she wrongly claimed salaries from the European Parliament for aides who were actually working for her National Front (FN) party.
Le Roux, in a brief announcement in his home constituency in the northern suburbs of Paris, said that his two daughters had worked for their pay and were employed in line with parliamentary rules.
But, he said, the requirements of his position – responsible for national security including the fight against terrorism – meant that “we cannot leave ourselves open to any exploitation”.
“I affirm my honesty in my human relations as well as my political actions, but my responsibility is also to preserve the government’s ability to function,” he said in explaining his decision to resign.
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve had earlier hinted that the minister’s position might not be tenable, saying: “Anyone in a position of authority in the state must be irreproachable in relation to its institutions and the rules that govern them.”
President Francois Hollande has appointed junior foreign minister for external trade Matthias Fekl to replace Le Roux in the interior ministry.
The portfolio is particularly sensitive at the moment, with France on high alert after terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice and elsewhere over the last two years left at least 238 people dead.
German-born Fekl, 39, a graduate of three of France’s elite colleges, was a Socialist Party lawmaker until receiving his first ministerial appointment in 2014.
The story about Le Roux’s daughters was broken on Monday night by broadcaster TMC, which reported that they had held some 24 short-term contracts, starting when one of them was only 15.
Le Roux told the broadcaster that the contracts in question were ordinary summer jobs, rejecting any comparison with Fillon’s ongoing legal troubles.
But TMC also came up with a more damaging allegation: that two of the short-term contracts covered periods when one daughter was pursuing a full-time internship in Brussels and the other was in school.
The broadcaster quoted Le Roux’s office as saying that on those occasions the girls made up their hours during their holidays and also worked off-site and in their free time.
Those details seemed to draw a closer parallel to the Fillon affair, as the allegations against the conservative presidential hopeful were not so much that he employed relatives as that they were drawing salaries without actually working.
Le Roux, spokesman for President Francois Hollande during the latter’s 2012 election campaign and a socialist lawmaker since 1997, had only been interior minister since December.
He replaced Cazeneuve, who was appointed prime minister after incumbent Manuel Valls resigned to pursue an unsuccessful bid for the left-wing nomination in the presidential election.
