French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac has resigned after being targeted in a tax fraud inquiry, the president's office said on Tuesday.
The announcement—a major embarrassment for President Francois Hollande's government—came hours after French prosecutors opened a formal investigation into allegations that the junior minister held a secret bank account in Switzerland.
Cahuzac, who is leading a government crackdown on tax evasion, has repeatedly denied a report in December by French investigative news website Mediapart that he held an undisclosed account at the Swiss bank UBS until the start of 2010.
The brief presidential statement said the move came at Cahuzac's own request. It named Europe Minister Bernard Cazeneuve as his successor.
Earlier, the public prosecutor said police laboratory tests showed a correlation between the voice of Cahuzac and that in a recording of a telephone call published by Mediapart, in which a male voice acknowledges holding an account at UBS.