Volkswagen scandal: France wants European probe

PARIS

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin has called for a European probe into revelations that the German automaker Volkswagen rigged emission tests for close to 500,000 of its models in Canada and the U.S.

"I think it seems necessary," Sapin told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday . "It must be done at a European level. We are in a European market with European rules. It is these that have to be respected. It is these that have been violated in the United States."

The French Finance Minister said the inquiry should be extended to French carmakers too.

"While it is being done on Volkswagen, I think that in order to reassure people, we'll need to also do it for the French manufacturers, but I have no reason to think the French manufacturers will have conducted themselves the way Volkswagen did," he said.

The allegations could lead to fines of up to $18 billion for the company under the U.S.’s Clean Air Act.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board claimed to have found software in 482,000 cars that detects when a vehicle is undergoing an emissions test and activates emissions controls. The controls are switched off when driving normally, releasing pollutants.

"Using a defeat device in cars to evade clean air standards is illegal and a threat to public health," Cynthia Giles, the EPA’s assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance, said in a statement on the agency’s website on Monday.

Volkswagen announced an "external investigation" into the claims.

"I, personally, am deeply sorry that we have broken the trust of our customers and the public," Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said in a statement.

"We will cooperate fully with the responsible agencies, with transparency and urgency, to clearly, openly and completely establish all of the facts of this case. We do not and will not tolerate violations of any kind of our internal rules or of the law."

The EPA ordered Volkswagen to recall all the cars concerned and alter the emissions systems.