French prosecutors said Wednesday that the headquarters of President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party had been searched in an investigation into the use of consulting firms by the government since 2017.
The Paris offices of US consulting giant McKinsey were also searched on Tuesday, the National Financial Prosecutors' Office (PNF) said, confirming a report in Le Parisien newspaper.
The use of consultants by Macron's governments came under the spotlight in March after an inquiry by the French Senate concluded that public spending on them had more than doubled from 2018-2021 during Macron's first term.
"It's normal for the judiciary to investigate freely and independently to shed all the light on this subject," a Renaissance spokesman, Loic Signor, told the French news agency AFP.
He said the party remained at prosecutors' disposal "to provide all useful information on the campaigns."
McKinsey also confirmed the search of its offices, saying it was "cooperating fully with the authorities."
Favouritism, conspiracy
Two probes have been underway since October, looking into possible false election campaign accounting, as well as possible favouritism and conspiracy.
Some McKinsey consultants are known to have worked as unpaid volunteers on Macron's victorious 2017 election campaign and prosecutors are thought to be probing whether this entailed a hidden campaign expense.
They are also looking into whether the firm enjoyed special access and treatment afterwards when winning lucrative contracts with the government.
Total outlays on consulting firms reached more than a billion euros ($1.1 billion) last year, a figure frequently cited by Macron's opponents during his successful bid for a second term last April.
The prosecutors have not publicly identified the president or his campaign teams as the targets of the inquiry, of which Macron said in November that "I'm not scared of anything."
'McKinseygate'
But the use of expensive foreign firms for strategic advice, dubbed "McKinseygate" by French media, shocked many French voters even as Macron has repeatedly defended the contracts.
France has strict rules on the financing of election campaigns and political parties, which have led to many convictions in recent decades.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy received a one-year prison sentence in September 2021 for illegal financing of his 2012 re-election bid.
Judges concluded that Sarkozy spent nearly twice the legal limit on his doomed quest for a second term. He has appealed the ruling.
(with wires)
