Campaign Chronicles: #McKinseyGate

We are now on the eve of the first round of the French presidential elections (April 10), and Emmanuel Macron has come under fire for the excessive use of private consulting firms for matters involving  state policy.  The issue does not sound especially scandalous.  It is a standard practice for  many governments, including the United States, and has become especially prevalent in matters to do with Covid; recently, for example, the CDC hired a public relations firm to help with their messaging.  The French government used McKinsey and other firms to help in the planning of various aspects of the pandemic, including the logistics of delivering masks and vaccines, the management of the delivery, and the assessment and evaluation of the distribution.  But beyond Covid, the use of private firms for state business, as the numbers seem to show, went up dramatically under Macron.

#McKinseyGate came out of a Senate investigation that started in November 2021. McKinsey and its ties to the Elysée Palace had been discussed before in the press; the Senate committee report gave visibility and focus to the issue, and moved it beyond the under-the-radar chatter, where it had remained, and into the forefront of the campaign.

 The Report, which has gladdened the hearts of the far-right supporters of the populist Marine Le Pen, was actually an initiative of the far-left.   Éliane Assassi, Senator from Seine-Saint-Denis, started the investigation by using the droit de tirage, or the right of any political group within the Senate to ask for a committee of inquiry on a particular issue; each recognized group can exercise this oversight function once a year.  

As a member of the Communist Party, Assassi seems to have some fundamental questions in mind.  Do such firms provide a range of choices to the elected politicians, or do they provide a single policy?  How are the firms chosen, and what is their stake in the solutions they provide?  Most importantly, perhaps, Assassi is concerned that the excessive use of this practice contributes to cynicism about democracy.  People might start asking themselves how important voting actually is: do those we vote for make the decisions, or is this another matter, like the closing of factories, where the state is relatively powerless against multinational mega-billion interests?

The Senate report came out in mid-March, with a fanfare of press coverage as well as television and radio interviews.  At nearly four hundred pages, it acknowledges that there are moments–Covid is one–where government action has to be scaled up quickly, and when the use of such firms brings expertise and resources that the state cannot immediately provide.  The Report also includes several useful legislative recommendations for the control of the process, both in the hiring of firms and in the structure of their contracts.  The Report, in effect, reveals a need for legislation; it does not seem to reveal any crimes on the part of the Macron administration, nor anything more than the impatience for quick analysis and reform.

But timing is everything. 

The release of the Report on March 16, less than a month before the first round of the presidential elections, with little time to discuss sensibly and in the midst of the noise of a campaign, has allowed #McKinseyGate to spin off into a number of directions.

For example:

Cronyism.  In late August 2021, a McKinsey executive was recruited to Pfizer, and McKinsey has counseled Pfizer.  This fact has played into the hands of the “Covid as a government conspiracy against freedom” crowd (yes, France has them too) as well as the allied assertion that Covid is a money-making venture by drug companies.  Added to that: several McKinsey associates worked on Macron’s 2017 campaign.

Tax evasion by the wealthy (an evergreen theme in all democracies).  Has McKinsey paid French taxes for its profits in France? They say they have.  But there will be an investigation, and it will take a long time.

Ideology.  Those on the Right have a long tradition of believing (to paraphrase Reagan) that “government is the problem, not the solution.”  Is this the endgame of decades of conservative demands to cut the bureaucracy, so that tax dollars can flow into the hands of private corporations?

On March 30, the Macron government sent out Amélie de Montchalin, Minister of Public Transformation and Public Service, and Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of the Budget.  They had several explanations.  

First, as already noted, Covid itself, which provided an unusual challenge that had to be solved quickly.

Second, the government was determined to digitize its functions across ministries as a means of increasing efficiency.  

Third, the government did not actually explode the amount spent on consulting firms, nor did McKinsey receive the lion’s share, since many firms were used.  Even the Senate Report recognized that “not counting information technology,” the government from 2018 to 2020 had actually spent less on consultants than was spent in 2014.  The jump in expenses in 2021, as noted, had an obvious cause.  Dussopt pointed out that the money paid to consultants amounted to .3% of the entire salaries paid to state employees.  Finally, they stressed, all decisions were made not by private firms but by government officials.  

The explanation seems effective, but is it enough during a political campaign?  And will this issue–like so many other such frenzies, in France and elsewhere–be forgotten the moment the campaign is over?

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Éliane Assassi: ‘Quand on a ce sentiment de ne compter pour rien, on ne va pas voter,” l’Humanité, September 20, 2021.https://www.humanite.fr/videos/eliane-assassi-quand-ce-sentiment-de-ne-compter-pour-rien-ne-va-pas-voter-720884

Aurélien Soucheyre, “Démocratie.  Éliane Assassi: ‘Qui décide entre l’exécutif et les cabinets privés’?”  l’Humanité, November 5, 2021.https://www.humanite.fr/politique/privatisations/democratie-eliane-assassi-qui-decide-entre-lexecutif-et-les-cabinets-prives

Marc Vignaud, “Affaire McKinsey: comment se défend le gouvernement,” Le Point, March 31, 2022.https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/affaire-mckinsey-comment-se-defend-le-gouvernement-31-03-2022-2470431_20.php

Mariama Darame, “Affaire McKinsey: l’exécutif et le Sénat s’accusent mutuellement d’instrumentalisation politique,” Le Monde, April 1, 2022.https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2022/04/01/affaire-mckinsey-l-executif-et-le-senat-s-accusent-mutuellement-d-instrumentalisation-politique_6120043_823448.html

Isaac Stanley-Becker, “How the U.S. vaccination drive came to rely on an army of consultants, The Washington Post, August 22, 2021.https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/22/private-consultants-vaccination-drive-outsourced/

“CDC director turns to media consultant as Covid-19 messaging frustrations mount,” CNN Newsource, January 7, 2022.https://ktvz.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2022/01/07/cdc-director-turns-to-media-consultant-as-covid-19-messaging-frustrations-mount/

Ned Pagliarulo, “Pfizer taps McKinsey executive to lead dealmaking efforts,” Biopharmadive,  August 26, 2021.https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/pfizer-aamir-malik-business-officer-succeed-young/605619/

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