FRENCH Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici proposed that E.U. states should better organize their fight against tax evasion. He said France favors the automatic exchange of bank information in the E.U., modeled after the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA.

That U.S. law requires foreign financial institutions to start reporting detailed information about U.S. account holders to the Internal Revenue Service. It's intended to help the U.S. Government learn whether Americans are evading taxes by stashing their money overseas.

France's latest stance follows the scandal in which ex-budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was charged with tax fraud after he admitted owning an undeclared foreign bank account containing some EUR 600,000 ($770,000).