Adding to a raft of investigations world-wide, Paris prosecutors have launched a preliminary investigation into possible fraud over the pollution-cheating software installed in diesel engines by German auto giant Volkswagen, a judicial source said Friday. The opening of the French investigation was based on information from an elected official in the Paris region and also from public statements about the scandal that has engulfed VW, the source said.
Volkswagen has admitted 11 million vehicles world-wide are equipped with the software that dupes pollution emission testing. The French probe into suspected "aggravated" deception will only concern cars sold in France. Nearly one million diesel cars of the Volkswagen brands - VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat - have been sold in France in recent years fitted with the pollution-cheating software, according to VW's French unit.
French Environment Minister Segolene Royal denounced Volkswagen's use of the software as "a form of theft from the taxpayer and the state" as the vehicles concerned benefited from state subsidies towards the purchase of "clean" vehicles. But Royal added that countries should not tar other auto firms with a cheating brush. "It is not because one company - Volkswagen - has cheated that everyone should be suspected," said Royal.