Is there a McKinsey “case”? In the immediate vicinity of the presidential elections, the Emmanuel Macron camp is trying to defuse the controversy over the use of consulting firms, particularly McKinsey, which opponents of the presidential candidate present as the symbol of collusion with the media. This practice has been particularly challenged since the publication of a Senate report highlighting a “spreading phenomenon.” According to this report, spending on consulting by the ministries went from 379.1 million euros in 2018 to 893.9 million euros in 2021. The controversy is fueled by some of the contracts revealed by the senators, which refer to reforms divisions, such as that of the APL, or even a report on “evolutions in the teaching profession” and its pay for merit. “This controversy is linked to people who have made falsehoods,” said Emmanuel Macron during a trip to Fouras (Charente-Maritime), just over a week before the first round. “When you hire a civil servant, you have them for life,” he continued. “Mais il faut qu’il ait des compétences dont vous avez besoin dans la durée. retired.” For this reason, the President of the Republic considers it “completely legitimate to say that if we need a mission, I take someone for the mission, be it a contractor or a service provider.” Above all because, he argues, the State has “four or five times less” recourse to it “because we have more officials” than neighboring countries. The day before, during a joint press conference, the Ministers of Transformation and Public Function, Amélie de Montchalin, and of Public Accounts, Olivier Dussopt, also tried to turn off the start of the controversy. According to them, the use of consulting firms is “common and useful” and that the practice is “widespread”, “common” and “useful” in the “most cases”. The firm McKinsey is particularly in the spotlight because it is accused of not having paid corporate taxes in France between 2011 and 2020. But it only represents 5% of the state’s strategic consulting spending, Olivier Dussopt detailed. And the government accounts for 5% of McKinsey’s turnover, he added. Opposite, all the opponents of the presidential candidate, from Jean-Luc Mélenchon to Marine Le Pen, seized the case. “Emmanuel Macron and his friends are trying to push McKinseyGate, a real estate scandal,” addresses Jordan Bardella (RN), while Eric Zemmour accuses Emmanuel Macron “of having returned the favor” because “McKinsey people worked for his electoral campaign ” in 2017. The environmentalist Yannick Jadot promises that, if elected, it would be “the end of the unbearable arrogance” of the consultants who, “with blows of hundreds of millions of euros a year, have thought, by order of the government, in the abolition of hospital beds, the reduction of APL and other brutal reforms”.
Source: BFM TV
