TRIBUNE — We have just learned that a complaint has been filed with the financial prosecutor’s office for corruption, influence peddling, illegal taking of interests (and possibly other offenses). Which is obviously more interesting than media chatter about the mundane McKinsey tax case. And much more than the declarations of the President of the Republic on the application in the future of the law, of which the citizens would have liked that it had already been applied.
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Interest, because if information is opened against a ” responsible ” of McKinsey, if one of them is put in examination, even condemned, it is the fate of Emmanuel Macron or that of other people of the ” side » of the State who are by the very fact possibly sealed. Because the offenses that are the subject of the complaint are offenses that are committed by two people. For example, in corruption, we generally have a corrupter and a corrupted.
That the McKinsey firm did not pay taxes in France… That is not disputed by anyone. Let us try now, since we have nevertheless ended up learning it, to make tax adjustments and to study, with the national financial prosecutor’s office, whether the firm in question or its managers have committed criminal offences, are very secondary questions in a certain respect. Except, perhaps, the question of knowing how the State, which pays money to a company, does not realize (through its services), and for so long, that part of this money does not return to its coffers in the form of taxes.
The real question is that of the criminal offenses, which may have been committed by the authors and the beneficiaries, of what looks like a beautiful return of the elevator. In a first phase, McKinsey employees work for free for the candidate Macron. Which, having become President of the Republic, via official procedures, then passes or makes pass contracts with McKinsey. Firm which will then earn a lot of money by carrying out tasks which everyone expected to be carried out by the services of the State, paid by the taxpayers. (1)
(1) All this without taking into account that the Pfizer laboratories (known in the United States for the amount of fines paid for corruption), whose products have been praised by French governments (somewhat beyond their qualities), have been customers of the same McKinsey, and that the said laboratories bought the nutrition branch of Nestlé in an operation whose realization is attributed to Mr. Emmanuel Macron, when he worked in a bank. This can add to the various questions, in any case those on “governance” (see note 4), which “sinked” without our realizing it, into the provisions of the Constitution.
In this case, if the offenses complained of were committed, they were, logically (see above), committed by persons under McKinsey’s control and by others under the State’s control. . Starting, with regard to this last side, with… the President of the Republic himself. Since, as we ended up learning (2), it was he who personally benefited from the assistance of employees of a company, which then benefited from juicy contracts decided or accepted in one way or another. another, this time by him on behalf of the state.
(2) The fact that the declaration of interest signed by Mr. Emmanuel Macron did not mention this situation led, after its discovery, to a referral to the Constitutional Council which was based on a recital of a recent decision of the latter ( N° 2022-184/188 PDR of March 14, 2022): “By virtue of the general mission of monitoring the regularity of the election of the President of the Republic which is conferred on it by article 58 of the Constitution, the Council Constitutional Court may exceptionally rule on petitions calling into question the upcoming election, in cases where the inadmissibility of these petitions would risk seriously compromising the effectiveness of its control of the election, would vitiate the general course of operations elections or would interfere with the normal functioning of the public authorities”. The request, treated as a late challenge to the establishment of the list of candidates, was rejected by the Secretary General of the Constitutional Council.
If Mr. Emmanuel Macron cannot be temporarily worried
— according to the provisions of article 67 al 2 of the constitution (3), it can technically be so in the long term — article 67 al 3 (4).
(3) s. 67 al 2 of the Constitution: “He cannot, during his term of office and before any French court or administrative authority, be required to testify or be the subject of an action, an act of information, investigation or prosecution. Any limitation or foreclosure period is suspended.
(4) art 67 al 3 of the Constitution: “The bodies and proceedings which are thus obstructed may be resumed or instituted against him at the end of a period of one month following the termination of his duties”.
The purely legal questions that we have mentioned are in fact coupled with a political issue (5).(5) With the inevitable pressure campaigns on judges, judges denounced as exploited, badly organized or scandalously politicized, disregarding the separation of powers or ignoring the sovereignty of the people… Judges who, experience teaches us, and some at their expense, are not always sensitive to these arguments
. Will it be possible for a President of the Republic to appear de facto like a ” client
potential for the judges of his country? Who would continue to sign or have signed contracts with whomever they wanted? Who would be chief of the armies and would go and negotiate treaties? Who would telephone the heads of foreign states to lecture them or even simply to assure them of their obedience? Who would be, the height of the farce, the guarantor of the independence of the judicial authority?
What a joke for foreign states! What a bad example given to the political class! We can venture to make several hypotheses arising from the very text of the Constitution, if the search for the above offenses is launched:
resignation or compulsory exit.
It is likely that the president will resign then. To avoid worse later. Or because he would be forced to do so by public opinion. Or that he would simply be invited to do so by those who brought him to power and who may have an interest in letting the fuse blow in the perspective, for the same governance, of setting up a clone, but with the and the line of conduct less conspicuous.
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Unless the pressures lead the political class to join the game, for the same reasons as above, by bringing into play article 68 (dismissal), or article 7 al 5 (noting of “the impediment”)
.
To be continued.
On these questions, see our commentary on the Constitution: “Constitutional texts and documents since 1958”. Dalloz-Armand Colin. And read the text of quoted articles of the constitution on “Legifrance”. Marcel M. MONIN is an honorary university lecturer.