What are the investigations and controversies surrounding the consulting firm?

The McKinsey case, the return. On Tuesday, searches were carried out at the Paris headquarters of McKinsey, the Renaissance party and the presidential party’s financing association. From the harsh conclusions of a senatorial commission of inquiry in March to the three investigations opened by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), this case never ceases to embarrass Emmanuel Macron. ” 20 minutes “ provides an update on the investigations and the controversy targeting consulting firms, which was the main controversy of the presidential campaign.

What are the three investigations opened by the PNF?

Several procedures are open. Since March 31, the PNF has been conducting a preliminary investigation for “aggravated laundering of aggravated tax evasion”, in order to verify whether the American firm has not put in place a tax arrangement allowing it to pay no corporate tax between 2011 and 2020 in France, which he refutes.

In October, the PNF also entrusted investigating judges with investigations for “non-compliant keeping of campaign accounts” and “reduction of accounting elements in a campaign account”, following several reports, complaints elected officials and individuals. In this section, the investigators are interested in the conditions of intervention of consulting firms in the campaigns of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 and 2022, according to several sources familiar with the matter. In particular on consultants who would have worked voluntarily for the candidate.

Another judicial investigation was opened for “favoritism” and “concealment of favoritism”. It looks more broadly at the use of the State to these firms and the conditions for awarding public contracts in this area, according to a source familiar with the matter.

How did the political controversy arise?

The consulting firms affair was the main controversy of the 2022 presidential campaign. In early 2021, The chained Duck reveals that the government has called on several of them to support it in the vaccination campaign against Covid. The subject intrigues the Communist senators. They obtain the creation of a commission of inquiry which conducts numerous hearings, including the Ministers of Public Service Amélie de Montchalin and Health Olivier Véran.

The case is gaining momentum with the publication of a book by journalists Matthieu Aron and Caroline Michel-Aguirre, The infiltrators, or how consulting firms took control of the state (ed. Allary). A twenty-year-old phenomenon according to the authors, who estimate that the sums paid to them “oscillate between 1.5 and 3 billion euros per year”.

The Senate report, published on March 17, three weeks before the first round of the presidential election, caused an explosion. The senators denounce “a sprawling phenomenon”, estimate at 893.9 million euros the consulting expenditure of the ministries in 2021, a figure which rises to one billion euros for all public operators combined. They also reveal baroque contracts with these firms. The oppositions seized on this “State scandal”. “There are no tricks”, defends Emmanuel Macron. “Anyone who has proof that there is a manipulation, that he goes to the penal! »

The Senate plunges the knife and seizes justice for “suspicion of false testimony” of an official of McKinsey in France. The latter had affirmed that his employer was paying corporation tax in France. At the end of November, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, recognized “abuses”, now “corrected (s)”. Olivier Véran, who has become government spokesperson, responds sharply to this outing: “I don’t know what a drift or an abuse is”.

Will the government really limit the use of consulting firms?

In a budget document published in October, the executive claims a 10% reduction in the amounts of services provided by consulting firms commissioned by the State in the first half of 2022. Objective: to reduce the bill by 15% across the entire year. And, from 2023, a new framework will apply to certain contracts: most assignments will be capped at 2 million euros and the number of services performed consecutively by the same service provider will be limited.

But these new measures actually cover only about a quarter of consulting expenses, excluding in particular computer advice, according to the president of the Senate inquiry committee, Arnaud Bazin. The Senate therefore relaunched its offensive and voted in mid-October on a bill to regulate the intervention of cabinets.

Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini regularly insists on his “willingness for the text to progress”, but the government does not seem to be in a hurry to put it on the Assembly’s agenda. Such a law could ultimately push some consulting specialists to turn away from the public sector, which is less profitable than the private sector, also worries the Syntec union, which represents consulting firms in France.

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