A senior Mexican finance ministry official has resigned after a video showing her sitting on a windowsill of the presidential palace sunbathing during work hours spread across social media, sparking public outrage.
According to local media outlets including El Universal and MVS Noticias on Wednesday, Florencia Melani Franco Fernández, director general of coordination at Mexico's Ministry of Finance (SHCP), submitted her resignation the previous day, which the government accepted. The resignation took effect on April 1, and Franco immediately vacated her office inside the Finance Ministry section of the National Palace.
The controversy erupted after a video filmed from the Zócalo plaza side in Mexico City spread on social media. The footage gained traction when content creator "Vampipe" discovered and published three videos shot from different angles. The National Palace, a center of power since the Aztec Empire, currently serves as the presidential office and residence — the symbolic heart of the nation. At the time the videos were recorded, a teachers' protest was taking place in the Zócalo plaza.
The scandal intensified when the government's initial response came under scrutiny. Infodemia, a government-run portal designed to identify fake news, officially declared the video an AI-generated fabrication. However, an internal investigation confirmed the person in the footage was Franco Fernández herself. When President Claudia Sheinbaum subsequently acknowledged at a regular press conference that "it actually happened" and mentioned disciplinary action, the false denial added another layer to the controversy. The very government body tasked with debunking fake news had itself issued a false explanation.
Franco joined the Finance Ministry in April 2022 as an aide to then-Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O and held the position of director general of coordination under current Finance Minister Edgar Amador Zamora. A lawyer who graduated from Escuela Libre de Derecho and earned a master's degree from Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, she was considered an elite bureaucrat. She is also the spouse of former Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio, and the public disclosure of her identity on social media fueled additional controversy over personal connections.
What most inflamed public sentiment was her salary and supplementary income. According to the Finance Ministry's transparent compensation platform, Franco's gross monthly pay was 150,822 pesos, with a net after-tax monthly income of 104,821 pesos (approximately 8.9 million won). Based on her 2025 asset disclosure filing, her total annual income including private earnings reached 4.2 million pesos (approximately 360 million won at early April exchange rates). It was further revealed that she had been receiving monthly consulting fees of 100,000 pesos from Grupo Ambrosia, a company that has secured over 4.4 million pesos in no-bid contracts with various government ministries and municipalities, raising concerns over potential conflicts of interest.
With Mexico's general minimum wage standing at just 315 pesos per day (approximately 27,000 won) and the average monthly salary for ordinary workers hovering around 10,000 pesos (approximately 850,000 won), the senior official's workplace negligence and dual-income structure deepened the debate over inequality between social classes.