PARIS (Reuters) – The French government has gone too far in using consultancy firms and is now working to correct that, Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday.
“For years (…) we had, probably too much, got into the habit of saying here is the administration is not capable of doing this work, we are going to outsource and ask consulting firms”, declared Bruno Le Maire during an interview on Sunday on France 3.
“I think that there was indeed a drift, that this drift was corrected, in particular by the circular of the Prime Minister who asked all the administrations to reduce by 15% the use of consulting firms.”
Between the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2022, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, for example, managed to reduce its use of consulting firms by 34%, he added.
Bruno Le Maire did not comment on the opening by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) of two judicial inquiries for “non-compliant keeping of campaign accounts” and “favoritism and concealment of favoritism” on Emmanuel’s two victorious electoral campaigns Macron in 2017 and 2022, under the so-called “McKinsey” procedure.
The PNF’s decisions follow the preliminary investigation opened on March 31 by the prosecution of the head of “aggravated money laundering of aggravated tax evasion” against McKinsey, on the basis of the report of the Senate inquiry committee relating to the influence of private consulting firms on public policy.
Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that the accounts for his 2017 campaign had been studied and then validated by the competent authorities and that he was awaiting the outcome of the procedures for the 2022 campaign, “like all candidates”.
(Report Dominique Vidalon; French version Kate Entringer)
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