France wants EU to cut international funding of 'Paradise Papers' countries

France today asked its European partners to agree on curbing international funding of states that provide tax shelters, following the huge leak of documents showing the tax affairs of the rich and famous. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, ahead of a meeting of European Union peers, called for a "credible" blacklist to be drawn up of tax havens and for sanctions for those who do not cooperate. Talks on a blacklist, initially planned for December, were brought forward by the EU ministers after media reports citing the "Paradise Papers", a trove of financial reports leaked mostly from Appleby, a prominent offshore law firm. Though tax avoidance is legal in many circumstances, the papers have dragged in famous names, including Queen Elizabeth. The documents were obtained by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and some media outlets. Reuters has not independently verified them. Le Maire called for the EU to look at the funding of countries that provide shelter. "We are thinking, for instance, about the possibility of cutting financial support of the international institutions like the IMF...