Now that the French presidential election is behind us, the French justice system has decided to take an in-depth look at Emmanuel Macron’s campaign accounts and at the financial malpractices that may have taken place, both for the 2017 campaign and for the 2022 campaign.
The information appeared in the columns of Le Parisien on Friday, November 25th. For the first time, the head of state Emmanuel Macron is directly targeted by an investigation launched by the national financial prosecutor (PNF). A judicial investigation was opened on October 20th for suspicions of illegal financing of Emmanuel Macron’s election campaigns in 2017 and 2022. The investigations target the links between the head of state and the consulting firm McKinsey, given the colossal amounts that were awarded to the American firm for public contracts. A second judicial investigation was opened on October 21st, this time for favouritism. In both cases, the national financial prosecutor’s office said it had received reports and complaints from elected officials, individuals, and associations, according to Le Parisien.
Among the investigating judges in charge of these thorny cases is a leading figure used to this kind of business, Serge Tournaire, who had to manage the investigations concerning former Prime Minister François Fillon and former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy.
This is not the first time that the sulphurous relations maintained by the American consulting firm with the French government have been in the crosshairs of justice. A first procedure was opened in the spring for “laundering,” a charge aggravated by suspicion of “tax fraud” following the revelations contained in a senatorial report on the excessive recourse of the French administration to consulting firms, primarily McKinsey. The report pointed to the explosion in the amount of public money—up to one billion in 2021— allocated to consultancy missions with questionable content and usefulness. The senators also highlighted the fact that, despite the sums received, McKinsey paid virtually no tax in France, thanks to clever tax avoidance schemes.
On the strength of the initial findings in this investigation, the PNF wanted to investigate further. The judiciary is now trying to find out whether the consulting firms, including McKinsey, provided candidate Macron the benefit of work and expertise that should have been accounted for in the campaign expenses. For French candidates, it is illegal to receive campaign services for free, unless such philanthropic gestures are clearly noted in the accounting report.
The investigation is still not complete but evidence is mounting. There are clear links between the head of state, his teams, and the American firm. Already in March, the newspaper Le Monde revealed that McKinsey consultants had worked for Emmanuel Macron on the 2017 campaign. Some of them had ended up in positions in Macron’s party, La République En Marche, or in ministerial cabinets.
Faced with the new judicial offensive, the Presidential office initially chose to remain silent. Then it decided to use the usual elements of communication in such circumstances. The Élysée indicated that it had “taken note of the communication from the national financial prosecutor’s office concerning the opening of two judicial inquiries following complaints from elected officials and associations.” And, it continued, “It is up to the judiciary to conduct these investigations in complete independence.” McKinsey responded with a similar reaction: “McKinsey has no information on the elements that have appeared in the press,” the firm explained.
Emmanuel Macron is the only politician explicitly named in the text of the financial prosecutor of the Republic. But given the total immunity he enjoys as president, he cannot be heard in any proceedings before the end of his term. The PNF, responsible in 2017 for the fall of Emmanuel Macron’s number one opponent, François Fillon, has thus, quite opportunely for the president, chosen to launch its new offensive at a very favourable time for him—when he is no longer at risk.
