(Finance) – The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macronis under investigation on charges of “favoritism” and “illegal campaign financing” of 2017 by the National Financial Prosecutor (PNF). The investigations concern the links between Emmanuel Macron and the consulting firm McKinsey, according to what was first reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien and then by other media in the country.
The investigation would concern i links between Macron and private consultancy firms. In particular, Le Parisien talks about suspected illicit financing in the presidential campaigns that led him to the Elysée in 2017 and 2022, as well as the attribution of some public contracts.
In a note, the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) does not mention Macron’s name, but announces that he has opened two judicial files at the end of October concerning respectively “the conditions of intervention of consultancy offices in the French electoral campaigns of 2017 and 2022” and related suspicions of “favoritism”.
Already during the 2022 presidential campaign there had been criticism against Macron, in particular with respect to the cContracts concluded in the last five years between the state and private consultancy firms such as the US giant McKinsey. On March 17, the Senate revealed that state orders for this type of private consultancy “more than doubled” between 2018 and 2021, reaching a record of over one billion euros in 2021.
The entourage of the Presidency of the Republic has answered to the news with a “no comment”.