(Bloomberg) — The party headquarters of French President Emmanuel Macron was raided by criminal investigators as part of a probe into possible campaign-financing violations during of his two winning bids.
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Financial prosecutors at the Parquet National Financier confirmed the evidence-gathering raids on Tuesday, as initially reported by newspaper Le Parisien. The prosecutors said investigators also carried out searches at the premises of the Renaissance party’s funding association and McKinsey & Co.’s Paris offices.
In a statement, a spokesman for Renaissance said the party of Macron is ready to cooperate with French investigators. McKinsey confirmed the fresh raids, which come after previous searches at its Paris offices in May. The consultancy said it’s “cooperating fully with public authorities.”
It isn’t the first time French investigators pour over over presidential candidates’ campaign finances. Nicolas Sarkozy is under investigation in France over suspicions he received covert funding from the regime of the late Moammar Al Qaddafi before he came to power. In 2021 he was found guilty of deliberately breaking campaigning rules by exceeding spending limits during his failed re-election bid. Sarkozy denies the accusations and has appealed his conviction.
Read more: McKinsey Probe in France Widened to Macron Campaign Funding
French authorities in October widened the scope of a case initially focused on McKinsey’s taxes. The investigators are now looking into possible downplaying of costs linked to consultancy work in campaign accounts during the 2017 and 2022 elections and are also examining allegations of favoritism.
As president of France, Macron, who was re-elected in 2022, is immune from prosecution during his five-year term.
Still, he has drawn criticism from political opponents ever since the McKinsey controversy broke out after the release in March of a French Senate report. It questioned the wide-ranging influence consultancies have developed over government decisions and pointed out that such spending by French ministries more than doubled during Macron’s term to €894 million ($952 million) in 2021 from €379 million in 2018.
–With assistance from Ania Nussbaum and Alan Katz.
(Updates with details on probe starting in fourth paragraph)
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