Good news for the Élysée. After the opening of a judicial investigation aimed at the management of Emmanuel Macron’s campaign accounts for the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections last October, the National Commission for Campaign Accounts assured this Friday morning that it had no evidence. denial of the President of the Republic regarding an alleged recourse to the consulting firm McKinsey.
“Among the many activists who got involved in the campaign voluntarily, (…) some of those who could have a professional commitment within the consultancies did so in their free time and within the framework of a personal political commitment”, as stated by Emmanuel Macron assured the institution that is in charge of verifying the veracity of the campaign accounts of the last presidential elections.
“No element susceptible to being questioned” Macron’s statements
Therefore, the commission considered that in “the state” there was no element “that could question the content and scope” of these statements.
However, two judicial investigations were opened on October 20 and 21 by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office against the Head of State. The courts then dealt with various reports and complaints from elected officials, individuals and associations.
In its press release, the judicial institution evokes “the conditions of intervention of consulting firms in the electoral campaigns of 2017 and 2022.”
Suspicions of “favouritism” for the prosecution
The court suspects that a dozen employees of the McKinsey consultancy, which the Macron presidency made extensive use of during its first five-year term, volunteered to develop the candidate’s program before the 2017 election.
So far, nothing illegal. Except this work would have been organized by the consulting firm and these employees would have been assigned to very specific tasks during their working time. This constitutes an offense designed to undermine campaign spending.
The second judicial investigation opened by the PNF refers to acts of “favouritism”, namely the consideration for the voluntary work carried out by the McKinsey teams.
The “expansive” use of consulting firms
Last March, a Senate report had established “the phenomenon of expansion” of the use of consultants by the State since Emmanuel Macron took office.
The main doubts referred to the collaboration with the American firm McKinsey, with which a contract of 12.3 million euros had been signed during the health crisis linked to Covid-19 and another of 3.88 million euros to manage the implementation of the APL reform.
Justice now suspects that these contracts are the counterpart of the work provided by the consultant’s teams during the campaign. Now it seeks to establish if these contracts are legal or if they were signed challenging the competition rules imposed on the State during public contracts.
100,000 euros to return
If the campaign accounts commission does not take charge of these files, however, Emmanuel Macron has been well pointed out for his use of social networks in the context of the 2022 presidential elections. “The usual accounts of the candidate Emmanuel Macron are used for electoral purposes”. propaganda” at the beginning of March can be read in the Official Gazette.
The institution had already called the Élysée tenant to order last March in order to differentiate his campaign tools from those of his role as President of the Republic. The president, however, assured after the commission that “only the social network accounts of the political parties that support him (they had been used for electoral propaganda purposes), without convincing.
If the commission does not judge that this irregularity is “serious enough to lead to the rejection of the campaign account”, Renaissance must pay a penalty of 100,000 euros.
Source: BFM TV
