After the Paris headquarters of the American consulting firm McKinsey and that of the Renaissance presidential party in December, the gendarmes of the research section (SR) of Paris this time pushed the doors of the personal homes of executives of the company. On January 31, searches were carried out at the homes of four McKinsey executives or former executives, including an important figure.
These acts of investigation are part of the investigations carried out now since October by three financial investigating judges responsible for shedding light on the links between Macronie and McKinsey and possible illicit financing of Emmanuel Macron’s campaigns in 2017 and 2012. Contacted, the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) did not wish to confirm these operations.
The role of McKinsey employees in presidential campaigns, in question
Magistrates and investigators are trying to find out if employees of the American company did not work for the victorious campaigns of the President of the Republic, without being declared, and if, in return, the cabinet did not benefit from favoritism in the attribution of juicy public contracts. According to Le Monde, consultants or ex-consultants of the private firm would have carried out consulting missions for the candidate En Marche. In addition, McKinsey employees have taken up positions within the presidential party La République en Marche! or ministerial cabinets after the election of Emmanuel Macron.
The American company had been singled out by a Senate report for the numerous and costly audit missions entrusted to it by the State services, in particular on the means of optimizing the public service.
The two investigations are open for heads of “non-compliant keeping of campaign accounts and reduction of accounting elements in a campaign account”, as well as “favoritism” and “concealment of favouritism”. Asked about these suspicions at the end of 2022, the Head of State had challenged any irregularity in the keeping of his campaign accounts and declared: “I fear nothing (…) I believe that the heart of the investigation is not your servant. »
In six months, McKinsey’s Paris headquarters has undergone two searches, one as part of this investigation into the financing of the President’s campaigns, the other as part of another investigation for “aggravated laundering of tax evasion” . Justice also questions the absence of corporate tax paid by the American group in France in recent years despite high turnover.