McKinseygate: The Rule of the Corporate Technocratic State By Dr Kimberly Clarke
Freddie Ponton has published in 21st Century Wire, a long investigative journalist coverage of what he argues is the creation of a new shadow government parasitic to the corporate state: “McKinseyGate: France’s Shadow Government and the Rise of the Corporate State.” The essay exposes the role played in this by consultancy firm such as the globalist Accenture, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Cap Gemini, Deloitte, Eurogroup, EY, McKinsey & Company, PwC, Roland Berger, and Wavestone. Among these firms, the name of McKinsey & Co should be familiar to Australians, and there will be more about their role in the discussion below.
Ponton’s essay is motivated by the recently released report by the French Senate, Summary report of French Senate Commission Inquiry into the Growing Influence of Private Consulting Firms on Public Policy. The conclusions of the report are discussed in detail in the extracts reproduced below for readers wanting details about how this played out in France. In summary, these transnational corporations have been paid billions of loot for work done in recent times, especially for consultancy on the Covid pandemic, the implementation of vaccine strategies and the rollout. This has occurred not only in France, but also the United States and Australia. The French Senate Report expresses alarm at the power and secrecy around these consultation firms, and the way the government bureaucracy has been taken over, to serve corporate agendas. In particular, the separation of the corporate sphere and government, something as important as any separation of powers, has been broken down and what the French call “pantouflage,” has arisen, as people move from the corporate sphere to government and back again, bringing enormous conflicts of interest, let alone security issues, since most of these big firms, as referenced this article, work with CCP China on projects as well. Their interests are globalist, not to the local nation.
The French public were angered by all of this, and now the government is doing something about it, with a trans-partisan bill that will begin to control these processes and produce greater transparency. The details are in two article extracts below, with the second extract by Guillaume Jacquot, writing in the French publication Publicsenat.fr going into detail about the French Senate report.
For us, the important question is does this corporate capture occur in Australia? As detailed in the two article extracts below, as far as consultancy firms were involved in the Covid vaccine rollout, there does seem to be a similar pattern as seen in France, with large sums of money being outlaid by governments for months, if not weeks of work. And the actual consultation reports are protected by confidentiality and shrouded in secrecy, so much so that Freedom of Information requests do not yield any information of significance.
While the present debate focuses around contemporary events, such as the Covid plandemic and vaccine rollout it should be noted that this corporate capture of government has been going on for decades, with the same pattern. Some development project is proposed, usually by corporates working with government, then a consultation process begins, mostly in secret, and the conclusions are always reached to go ahead with the project. A notable historical example of this was the Multifunction Polis Project (MFP), which was a joint Japanese Australian mega-project, to build a so-called futuristic multi-national city in Australia, mainly full of Japanese. In the early stages various sites of strategic interest to Japan, which occupied the same imperialist position of power then that communist china has now, were considered, but in the end it was decided to build this monstrosity in the degraded swamps at Gilman, Adelaide. The project went on for years, facing strong opposition, and my mother was highly vocal about it in the local “MFP concerns Group.” As a teenager I went to protest meetings with her, dad having died from a stroke. But the point here is that consultancy firms were used right throughout the process of project formulation. Yet, in the end, the entire project was a disaster, and even the government land was sold off cheaply. Of course, the real fault must lie with governments, and the Bannon state government at the time was a disaster, and yielded the legacy of the State Bank disaster, which I believe is still being paid off. Yes, for John Bannon, you can bank on disaster.
Consultants are used at all levels of government, including local councils who may be involved in development projects, such as building retention dams (and acquiring people’s properties), or approving developments. There is one project at the moment near where my mother’s nursing home is, which has involved road widening. Part of a school, and on the other side of the road, an historic building had to go. In fact, despite protests, the historical building has now gone. The reason is that some high-ranking police officer sadly got killed at the intersection by a speeding drunk motorist. Somehow all of this development will save unfortunate souls from speeding drunk motorists? I for one don’t believe it, no matter how much property is acquired.
In short, as with everything, we need greater democratic control over what those who rule us do, instead of being treated like passive subjects. Today, opposing technocratic control, which is ultimately what all this is, is our number one freedom agenda.
“Australia’s federal government has worked together with McKinsey & Company for two months on a top-secret engagement, remaining tight-lipped on the actual nature of the project.
In recent years, public spending on consulting work has increasingly come under the media’s microscope in Australia. For the longest time, the federal government has justified its hiring of private firms with tax payer money by arguing it has helped advance strategic agenda’s, or simply plug gaps in capacity and skillset.
This year, the situation seems to be coming to a head though. Earlier in 2021 analysis revealed that the federal government had spent $1.2 billion on consultants in 2020 – the first time in history the annual spend had surpassed the $1 billion milestone, rising from just under $980 million in 2019 – with the lion’s share going to some of the world’s biggest firms: McKinsey, BCG, Accenture and the Big Four.
Amid the public scrutiny heaped on the government resulting from this, rather than scaling back spending the government looks to have obscured its procurement of advisors. The most recent example of this has seen the press push the federal government for details on a $2.2 million confidential contract with McKinsey & Company to little effect.
McKinsey received the multi-million pay-out for just two months of work, as revealed by AusTender – the government’s own tender website. However, beyond the fact it was through the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, even the most basic details have been kept from the public eye. The department itself has declined to answer questions about the nature of the work McKinsey was conducting, how it was selected for the work, or what about the engagement could merit such a hefty price tag.
In a sparse statement, a spokesperson told the press, “Information on the contract awarded to McKinsey is available on AusTender.” The information on AusTender merely states that the work relates to a research programme, and an “inter-departmental workforce taskforce,” though.
Critics of the government are concerned that handing out contracts without any chance for public debate means the government is not securing value for money.
It should be noted, though, that there are several reasons why the contract could have been kept confidential. While the government may want to keep it secret as it may spark lengthy debate, or compromise the project’s goals before they are realised, it could also be that there are official secrecy statutes and privacy laws which mean the contract must stay private.
At the same time, it is possible McKinsey does not want it to go public. The world’s largest strategy consulting firm (and arguably most prestigious) is notoriously secretive on its engagements, and does not share details of its projects, clients, or its pricing.
Elsewhere, it is not the first time the government has cloaked its relations with McKinsey. In 2020, the government took advice from McKinsey on its vaccine and treatment strategy, which cost $660,000 for four weeks of work. The ABC attempted to secure the McKinsey advice through freedom of information laws, but the only document it could obtain was an eight-page summary of publicly available vaccine data.
McKinsey is also being paid $2.1 million to investigate the potential for onshore mRNA manufacturing, which could allow for production of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in Australia. The report will not be made public, and according to InnovationAus, the contract was not posted to AusTender for months after the work was done – something which violates procurement rules.”
https://www.innovationaus.com/another-2m-mckinsey-govt-vaccine-contract-kept-hidden/
“Multinational consulting giant McKinsey was paid nearly $2 million over three months late last year by the federal health department to assist with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout. But the contract was kept hidden until last month, with the government blaming human error.
The Department of Health awarded McKinsey a $1.859 million contract for “strategic supply chain support services”, running from 29 September to 18 December last year.
But details of this contract were not revealed publicly on AusTender until 10 May, in breach of the government’s own procurement rules.
A spokesperson for the department said this was due to human error.
“The contract for this work had not been posted to AusTender as it had been incorrectly registered in the department’s Financial Management Information System as being exempt from reporting,” the spokesperson told InnovationAus.
“The error was discovered during the department’s routine assurance activities and the correction was made as quickly as practicable.”
The Health spokesperson said that procurements of Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and related goods and services are exempt from public reporting rules “in order to protect human health in the context of the Covid-19 global pandemic”.
The McKinsey contract was initially registered as exempt from public reporting under this clause, but this was a mistake by the department. The work by the consulting giant did relate to the vaccine rollout.
“Given the scale and complexity of Australia’s Covid-19 vaccination program, the Australian government, through the Department of Health, has procured services to inform and support the rollout through the provision of expert knowledge and skills, including from McKinsey & Company, to augment its own functional expertise, including with program delivery, logistics, administration of vaccines and data support,” the department spokesperson said.
It’s the second McKinsey contract in recent weeks revealed to have been hidden from the public, with a $2.1 million deal to develop a business case for local mRNA vaccine manufacturing capability not posted publicly until months after the work was completed.
This was also against procurement rules, with the industry department blaming an “administrative error”.
The final report that McKinsey produced as a result of this $2 million contract will also not be made public.
It was also revealed at Senate Estimates last week that the department had paid McKinsey a further $2.1 million to assist with the mRNA manufacturing capability procurement process. This contract has not yet been posted publicly.
McKinsey enjoyed a sharp uptake in its federal government work during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The dollar value of its contract nearly tripled in 2020 compared to the previous year, reaching $50.6 million. This figure is now closer to $55 million with the two previously unreported contracts last year.
One of these contracts was worth $660,000 and was awarded in August last year. As ABC News revealed last week, this work resulted in McKinsey producing an “eight page summary of publicly-available vaccine data” after four weeks of worth, and no “specific advice” to government.”
https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/12/09/mckinsey-makes-millions-government-contracts/
https://www.innovationaus.com/mckinsey-paid-1m-to-secretly-tell-govt-how-to-increase-supply-of-rats/
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-many-times-mckinsey-has-been-embroiled-in-scandals-43996
https://news.yahoo.com/critics-mckinseys-both-chinese-companies-110017636.html
“In France, consultancy firms have been paid billions of euros to advise governments on policies from the coronavirus vaccine, to climate change, and vaccine roll-out, as well as digital transformation, according to a new report released by the French Senate. While the financial sums are staggering, the real scandal is the level of influence on policy that these shadowy corporate actors wield deep inside the halls of government.
The revelations contained in this report are extraordinary, and expose the inner workings of the highest echelons of the French state, in what can only be described as the near-complete corporate capture of the bureaucracy.
The findings of the Senate report have since been adopted unanimously by committee members on March 16, and will be translated into a legislative proposal, and a trans-partisan bill which has already been announced.
What has been revealed is breathtaking, and opens the door to what could be one of the most consequential scandals in decades.
Summary report of French Senate Commission Inquiry into the Growing Influence of Private Consulting Firms on Public Policy
This article will not only examine the corporate takeover of whole governmental departments, but it will also look at the risk-benefit analysis of government in its liberal use of consultancy services, and outline the danger that lies with such Public Private Partnerships. It will also provide concrete evidence of consultancy firms’ deep and problematic business ties with the Executive Branch of the French Government.
It is important to examine how these powerful consultancy firms underpin a much larger transnational network. This raises a number of important questions: what is the likelihood of conflict of interest taking place, and do they represent a danger to countries’ national security? Are elected officials and civil servants taking a back seat to non-elected private individuals and their companies who are being allowed to steer public policy in favor of a much broader transnational corporate agenda?
After a four-month parliamentary inquiry looking into lucrative contracts granted to consultancy firms like Accenture, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Cap Gemini, Deloitte, Eurogroup, EY, McKinsey & Company, PwC, Roland Berger, and Wavestone, the French Senate Commission has released its findings – and the outcome is rather damming. The inquiry was lead by senators and the French government opposition bench.
The use of consultancy firms by the French administration has more than doubled since the beginning of Macron’s five-year presidential mandate. According to the Senate commission report, a noticeable 45% increase in 2021 has been identified, some of which can be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many serious questions and findings have emerged from the Senate committee inquiry report, including the likelihood that Karim Tadjeddine, an Associate Director at McKinsey & Company, may have perjured himself during a Senate hearing when according to Senator Éliane Assassi he claimed under oath that McKinsey was paying taxes in France.
Despite McKinsey being awarded many contracts in France, the commission investigation into this matter, with the help of the government budget department, will reveal that McKinsey has not paid any taxes in France for at least 10 years. How can this be?
In a press conference, Eliane Assasi described the government use of these consultancy firms as a “reflex” and outlined how these companies are embedded at the highest level within the government, and integrally involved in most of the major government reform projects, including the pension reform scheme, the housing benefits reform, and several key aspects of the government’s economic recovery plan.
The conclusion of the 350-page report is very alarming. Naturally, the people of France want answers.
The Public-Private Revolving Door
Following the 2007 election of President Nicolas Sarkozy, the use of consultancy companies became a phenomenon with firms like McKinsey, Deloitte, Cap Gemini, BCG, and Accenture securing deals worth about €250 million during his tenure. Firms sought to create a growth market with government growth drivers, in order to compensate for the slump in the business sector.
Unprecedented levels of payments to firms like McKinsey are part of a much broader budget which was allocated by the French government to hire consultancy firms to assist in the design and implementation (including operational) of public policy projects in support of the DITP (inter ministerial directorate for public transformation) and the inter ministerial digital directorate (DINUM), and the modernization of all their departments.
More alarming is the fact that such companies were hired to work directly on legislative reforms. While these firms may claim that their quest to secure lucrative government contracts is not motivated by financial gain, but rather as an investment in a Public Private Partnership, the reality is that this is a form of lobbying which ensures that numerous high-level government officials are well looked after as they eventually return to the corporate world for a few years holding top position in French CAC top 40 companies, before returning to the political scene. This ‘revolving door’ between government and the consultancy industry is where the real money is made for consultancy firms and their directors. In reality, only 5% of McKinsey revenues are generated in the public sector, the rest is secured with large corporate accounts. However, the back and forth between the public and private sector is so well established that the French have given it a name: “Pantouflage.”
The so-called “Pantouflage” has increasingly been at the centre of many scandals in France; government officials’ constant incestuous back-and-forth between the corporate world and government has gradually eroded away at the foundations of democracy, allowing all forms of conflicts of interest to take place. Of course, we can accept the fact that politicians do have, at some stage, to go back to work in the private sector – which is not a crime in itself, but returning to the political stage afterwards shouldn’t even be an option.
Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can see governments around the world resorting to a reliance on high-powered consultancy firms to formulate and implement vaccination strategies, the controversial roll-out program, and its associated procurement and logistics.
Macron government spent 2.4 billion euros on consulting firms
In the United States, McKinsey secured $19.3 million worth of contracts which turned out to be a mere down payment, as 10 days later the US Defence Health Agency added more funding – bringing the VA Contract’s value to an excruciating $22.5 million, and all this in just the first months of the pandemic, according to investigative site ProPublica.
As for the United Kingdom, the bills of the Boston Consulting Group aka BCG, were amounting to £10 million – for 40 people to work on the government’s Covid testing program. Consultants’ fees were estimated at £6,250 a day over the course of four months, according to a report in the Guardian.
It’s important to note here the hundreds of millions of euros which privileged corporate suppliers netted from these unprecedented testing, track and trace apps, PPE, and vaccination programs – with foreign consultancy firms embedded at the very center of the government process for the selection and awarding of these super contracts.
Among the German market’s top performers are Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company who posted their best years ever during the pandemic. €550 billion was allocated to protect the economy from the effects of the novel coronavirus in Germany according to DEVEX Interactive dashboard which keeps track of where such funding is going, who is supplying the money, and the strategic focus for the funding.
As reported by Consultancy.eu in March 2020, a strong growth in Europe’s largest consulting markets had lifted the continent’s consulting industry to a record high turnover of $45 billion during this period, with European consultancy powerhouses France and Germany leading the way.
During the ‘public health’ crisis, the call for employing more consulting firms was not only limited to the first wave of the Covid pandemic, a period when the State was seen to be unprepared, and when Europe appeared to be surprised by the scale of the alleged contagion. However, the use of private consultants continued throughout the duration of the crisis. Enter McKinsey, who was drafted in to intervene by sorting out all the logistical organization and monitoring of France’s national vaccination campaign, spanning from November 2020 to February 4, 2022. The new ‘McKinsey cabinets’ were seen to have lent a hand to the State on the key aspects of the crisis, and they are still in charge today.
The Senate reports also indicate that Accenture intervened to direct the implementation of information systems such as the vaccination passport or a French ‘pass sanitaire’ (which is a version of the new EU Digital Covid Certificate), whilst consultants Citywell advised the State on the supply and management of PPE equipment like masks, from March to October 2020.
According to a report filed by Mediapart (independent French online investigative journal) Accenture has been selected to make €800 million euros in savings on state services, for a mission whose amount is estimated at €25 million euros, according to the investigation. Not surprisingly, McKinsey managed to obtain the second part of that market whose mission was meant to achieve savings across 484 public institutions for a minimum amount of savings estimated by Bercy at €200 million euros. The Senate report discloses some 68 orders placed by the State with various consultancy firms, for a total amount of €41.05 million Euros in fees. According to the senators, based on the billing practice of five consultancy firms, they were able to determine that individual consultants were billing the French government an estimated €2,168 per day.
In 2021, more than €1 billion euros minimum in consulting expenditures for ministries and public operators was recorded (bearing in mind the Senate Inquiry investigated only 10% of the French public operators). The question remains: where did this money go, and what do we have to show for it? What was the noticeable impact on all of these supposed government cost reduction strategies?
Consider the following: whilst the United States is asking McKinsey to pay a compensation of $573 million to settle a dispute over their involvement in the disastrous opiates scandal, the French government is hiring McKinsey to run its national vaccine roll-out.
It is only fair for us to question the reasons why such an astounding amount of taxpayers money has been allocated to these well-connected firms, and McKinsey in particular (taking in roughly €250,000 euros per working week, €50,000 euros per day) to do a job our Ministry of Health is more than well-equipped to undertake. Is the French state now ConsultoDependent?
The problems do not end there. Several elected officials suspect serious conflicts of interest and close ties between certain consultancy firms and members of the government, including President Emmanuel Macron himself, who is suspected of such ties.
Indeed, there were links during the presidential campaign between Macron and McKinsey – as evidenced in a report from French media outlet LeMonde, which published an explosive article where we learn how Macron’s campaign program was written “for free” by 20 McKinsey employees.
Eliane Assassi (rapporteur) and Arnaud Bazin (President) of the Senate Commission inquiry reminded every one of their conclusion, that the purpose of their inquiry was not to question the use of private consulting firms, but to first assess its relevance, and to document any interference by private consulting firms into the formation of public policies. Their goal is to put an end to the opacity that surround the relationship between consultancy firms and our government.
Breakdown of consulting expenses during the health crisis
(excluding Public Health France and in millions of Euros)
What was McKinsey’s role in France’s vaccination strategy?
Logistics Organization – Study of logistics scenarios for the distribution of vaccines, monitoring of deliveries, stocks, injections and appointments
Indicators & Monitoring Tools – Daily production of performance management indicators of vaccine campaign, follow-up of a register of around 250 key actions and decisions
Sector Analysis Requested by the Ministry of Health – Action plan for the 3rd dose recall campaign, update on the overseas territories in the summer of 2021
Project Management – Preparation of meetings, support for the restructuring of the “vaccines” task force
The Senate conclude their report by accusing the French subsidiaries of the US-based McKinsey & Company of tax avoidance, and the complaint has now been forwarded to the public prosecutor.
McKinsey’s French turnover reached €329 million euros in 2020, of which around 5% is in the public sector, and it employs around 600 employees based in the country, and yet for more than 10 years they have never paid corporate taxes in France.
French Heath Minister Olivier Véran was interviewed in February 2022 by the Senate committee on the overuse and potential influence of consultancy firms such as McKinsey – who appear to control the key decision-making mechanisms relating to France’s vaccination strategy (and other French strategic areas).
Who is McKinsey in France?
The company, nicknamed “The Firm,” apparently doesn’t like the spotlight, yet it is located on the Champs above a shopping mall, with a breathtaking view of Paris. It has long been regarded as a company that cultivates secrecy over its 100-year history following its founding in the United States. As a World Economic Forum (WEF) partner, McKinsey is a consulting firm for CAC40 French stock market bosses, heads of state, and government ministers.
On its website, the company says it is “committed to the decisive transformations of its customers” and “Improving the World.” Digital transformation is the path Macron’s government took from 2017 onward, which appears to be streamlined with the WEF agenda known as the “Great Reset,” and whose coffee table publication can be found on many world leaders’ presidential desk. It only stands to reason then that Macron’s grooming as a WEF Young Leader in Davos, Switzerland will have some influence on the direction which such sweeping government initiatives are taken.
How was McKinsey able to escape the French tax authorities?
“McKinsey is indeed subject to corporation tax in France, but its payments have been zero euros for at least 10 years”, said the Senate Commission Inquiry into the “Growing Influence of Private Consulting Firms on Public Policy.”
The documents the commission reviewed relate to the period spreading between 2011 and 2020, and concern “the two main McKinsey entities registered in France: McKinsey & Company Inc. France and McKinsey & Company SAS”.
McKinsey uses a ‘tax optimization’ mechanism popular with many multinationals: the declaration of the “transfer prices” of its entities in France to the parent company based in the state of Delaware, a registered tax haven in the US. The firm ensures that many expenses such as general administration costs or the provision of personnel appear as expenses in the company’s annual accounts, and allows it to reduce its corporate taxes to zero.
McKinsey’s ties to intelligence
In a July 2019 article by Politico, we learn that, “For the past four years, the powerhouse firm McKinsey and Co. has helped restructure the country’s spying bureaucracy, aiming to improve response time and smooth communication” at key agencies such as the CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In this article, an insider revealed how McKinsey’s “efforts have hindered decision-making at these agencies,” further describing McKinsey’s efforts as a collosal waste of time and money.
As for France, the question is whether or not McKinsey could also be used as a back door for the US intelligence agencies to gather political and economic intelligence, or influence or steer France’s political, commercial or foreign policies.
Matthieu Aron and Caroline Michel-Aguirre co-author of the book “Les infiltrés” published a must-read in order to understand how these consultancy firms have now seized control of the State.
Aron recently commented, “It is this firm [referring to McKinsey] that piloted the vaccination strategy in France. Dozens of consultants arrived at Public Health France [Ministry of Health] and took the place of civil servants, and decided how to organize this vaccination roll-out across the country. This has never happened before, why now?”
He also points out how McKinsey, a US firm, has been awarded a strategic mission by the French Ministry of Defence – triggering new alarm bells from the national security community This has been an issue of great concern as it exposes our national security structure and defence strategies to completely unaccountable foreign agents.
We must question the nature of all these contracts, including why and how they were awarded. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to overlook the fact that McKinsey’s Associate Director Karim Tadjeddine, the man responsible for the public services contract – is a long time close colleague of French President Emmanuel Macron.
As it turns out, the pair have known each other for a very long time, and are likely close friends. Tadjeddine even co-wrote a book prefaced by Emmanuel Macron, and was also very deeply involved in Macron’s 2016-2017 presidential campaign.
Matthieu Aron added in an interview he gave to Léa Salamé on France Inter in Feb 2022:
“What we these consultancy forms fingerprints in all our ministries, including the Armed Forces, Health or Education sector, and that can no longer be ignored? How can the government justify €496 000 euros spent for a report on “the evaluation of the future profession of teacher” or €235,000 euros for “a guide to teleworking”. It has become systematic that the State can no longer do anything on its own without asking for a report.”
Outcomes and takeaways from such reports are extremely arguable and rightly so. Hence, many French citizens struggle to see any benefits.
But what exactly are these consultants actually selling?
Broadly, they are selling the wholesale transformation, reset and replacement strategies for ministries, under the guise of supposedly saving money and helping the administration by ‘remaining a competitive service provider.’
Gabriel Attal, Macron’s government spokesperson, confirmed on the 18th March 2022 during an interview on BFMTV that they were planning to reduce their consultancy envelope and create an internal government lead consultancy desk, again claiming this was an effort to reduce cost.
The ‘Consultancy Advisory Desk’ project is being led by Amelie de Montchalin, the French Minister of Transformation and Public Service, whose husband just happened to have spent 10 years in the consulting industry, at the Boston Consulting Group’s Paris offices. Another coincidence?
Following April 2016 when Emmanuel Macron launched his political movement “La Republique En Marche,” barely two months later, Guillaume de Montchalin, then principal and now partner of the Boston Consulting Group, proposed in June 2016 to the young team of En Marche, that Emmanuel Macron take part in one of its “Office Fridays.” The exchange was organized between the staff of the firm, and prominent personalities (high-level entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and politicians).
According to a “Consultor “article, the request was addressed to one Stéphane Charbit, a person close to the campaign and current managing director at Rothschild Bank, Stéphane Charbit, who then supported him with Cédric O, the treasurer of En Marche at the time – who is now Secretary of State for digital transformation. Knowing Macron was trained and groomed in the mergers & acquisitions branch of the Rothschild Bank, one might wonder if the bankers wanted to keep a tab on their very promising presidential candidate, or simply monitor their investment.
This is not merely a sign of interest from strategic consulting firms. Guillaume Kasbarian, then manager at PMP consultancy and former consultant at Monitor, remembers being among the “first 100 people to join” Macron’s campaign.
“I was behind Emmanuel Macron from day one,” said Kasbarian.
As it turns out, in 2016, McKinsey’s Karim Tadjeddine and Emmanuel Macron were both prominent members of the Board of Directors of “En Temps Réel” (In Real Time), a high-level French technocracy think tank which was presided over by EURO NEXT CEO Stéphane Boujnah until September 2016. From August 2014 to August 2016, Macron was France’s Minister of Economy & Industry & Digital Affairs before assuming the presidential office on the 14 May 2017. Is this incredible timetable a coincidence?
Who is this mysterious McKinsey firm, which accompanies Macron from the creation of his political party “En Marche”, to France’s national vaccination strategy?
The first meeting of Emmanuel Macron and McKinsey & Co in 2007
The links between Emmanuel Macron and the McKinsey firm date back to 2007. Emmanuel Macron, then finance inspector, was just 29 years old. At this point he became deputy general rapporteur of the “Commission for the Liberation of French Growth,” known as the Attali Commission, named after its leader, political scientist and economist Jacques Attali, regarded as a central actor in the French deep state, whose role was to propose economic reforms to then President Nicolas Sarkozy on how to modernise the government and make it ‘more efficient.’ Macron impressed the audience whose members included Éric Labaye, a veteran of Macron’s Promotion X (for those who know) and then director of McKinsey in France.
A former member of the Attali Commission was interviewed by Le Monde who said:
“We met in the evening until midnight in a room in the Senate with Attali and Macron. In the public seats, there were three or four young people from McKinsey. They were doing simulations on Excel. Their leader was so brilliant that people listened to him as if he were a full member. Their manager was a man called Karim Tadjeddine.”
This series of events was definitely not a coincidence.
The Great Revolving Door: From McKinsey to Ministries
The relationship between Macron and McKinsey go even deeper.
Another close collaborator of Emmanuel Macron is Éric Labaye (image, left), a former Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, and chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute known as MGI; a strategic arm of the firm’s global economic research. Labaye was also the Director General of McKinsey France in 2002.
Éric remained with McKinsey until the 16th Sept 2018. Once Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, young consultants from McKinsey were already surrounding the new President, since they had played a crucial role in putting him into office.
McKinsey partner Labaye was also Director General of Macron’s La Republique En Marche, and was eventually appointed President of Polytechnique by the Council of Ministers in August 2018 (basically appointed by Emmanuel Macron). Polytechnique is France’s most prestigious engineering school. Perhaps Éric’s job was done – McKinsey was embedded inside the government for good, and Éric was rewarded for it with this highly coveted appointment (another scandal on its own, but I am going to skip this for now as I want to stay on track).
Here we have a diagram of Macron’s connection with McKinsey, but also the connections between McKinsey and other governmental institutions in France and beyond.
Considering all of this, it wasn’t much of a surprise when the French senate commission eventually decided to launch a 4-month inquiry on McKinsey’s influence in the French state’s affairs.
The diagram above is the reason why the Senate talks about ‘sprawling connections’ when speaking of McKinsey in France. It seems that if the CIA had planned to infiltrate the French government (regardless of whether or not it had done this already), it is now very clear that McKinsey would be their ideal point of entry.
The influence of McKinsey on public policy, as well as their motives – is truly in question at this stage, and the people of France are growing restless, and now they want answers.
Thus, McKinseyGate, along with the preliminary conclusions of the Senate inquiry is a State scandal and heads are expected to roll.
Another example of a flagrant conflict of interest is Victor Fabius, son of Laurent Fabius, President of France’s Constitutional Council, a crucial institution whose role is to shield the French citizenry from government misuse of power. Incredibly, Victor also just happened to work for McKinsey – the very same company pushing the Covid vaccine roll-out – despite a massive push-back from millions of French people, including 300,000 caregivers and medical staff coerced into taking the controversial vaccine in order to keep their job, and much more. Oddly, The Constitutional Council was a no-show during the approval process of Macron’s relentless pandemic emergency bills, despite the fact that such bills were deemed by many legal experts to be unconstitutional in France, and also in the EU.
It’s important to reiterate that none of McKinsey’s people are elected officials in France, and so the question is why should they have a say in our country’s immunization policy, or housing policies, or any fundamental public policy issues in France?
We are now seeing a vivid and highly disturbing picture emerge with McKinseyGate: under the auspices of the innocuous-sounding ‘Private Public Partnership,’ we can now see the formation of a shadow government in France – a veritable foreign corporate fifth column firmly installed inside the French government structure.
Back when Macron created his political party En Marche in April 2016, that summer, working groups had already been set up with no less than a dozen McKinsey employees lined up for consideration on proposals for the economy or major sovereign issues reported journal Le Monde. At the same time, Macron was seen organising a “big march” in France to symbolize the collection of grievances of the French. A former McKinsey, Guillaume Liegey, one of the notorious “Bostonian Three” who took part in Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, was responsible for collecting and processing the data. McKinsey then formatted the report. Emmanuel Macron’s official presidential candidacy was then announced on November 16, 2016.
The Corporatisation of Government
Prior to Emmanuel Macron’s election, each ministry was responsible to organize their own tenders, but Macron didn’t waste any time in launching his ‘reform’ of the State’s bureaucratic structures, and created an inter-ministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (DITP) whose role was to supervise all missions commissioned by the State from private firms in order to prevent any dominant position of any one consulting firm. It was in this particular context that the French vaccinial strategy was awarded to McKinsey & Co.
McKinsey’s embedded operative for the DITP contract at the time was none other than Karim Tadjeddine, the leader who had so impressed the Attali Commission, and who today finds himself at the centre of a new state scandal in France.
Funny how it took a Senatem Commission inquiry to find out that the head office of McKinsey & Company France is not registered in Paris – but in the United States, and in a tax haven state called Delaware. How convenient!
By now, it would not surprise many in France if McKinsey has in fact been working relentlessly in pushing along the rapid implementation of the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab’s “Great Reset” in France, as McKinsey was allowed by our own government to infiltrate the very heart of the French administration and judiciously placed at the helm of our vaccination strategy, as well as other strategic projects in areas like education and defense.
Was it Macron who chose McKinsey, or McKinsey who chose Macron?
Apart from Guillaume Liegey, Arthur Muller (currently CEO and co-funder eXplain) and Eric Labaye which we have already mentioned above, we must take a look back at April 2016, the date of the creation of Emmanuel Macron’s party, En Marche, in which a dozen employees of McKinsey France were involved including senior and junior consultants who took part in fundraising dinners for Macron’s campaign in 2016 and 2017, from London to Paris, and from Madrid to Brussels.
Who else had a McKinsey background?
- Mathieu Maucourt deputy director of the secretary’s office Digital State, comes from McKinsey
- Ariane Komorn head of the LREM project department (La Republique en Marche Macron’s political party), comes from McKinsey
- Paul Midy general manager of LREM (La Répulique en Marche), comes from McKinsey
- Martin Bohmert, the former youth president with Macron, joined McKinsey in 2020
- Guillaume de Ranieri, leader of Aerospace and Defense at McKinsey & Company
- Jean-Christophe Pierron, engagement manager at McKinsey
- Maël de Calan, Associate partner at McKinsey since 2018 former financial director of the biotech ManRos
Mathieu Maucort, former project manager at McKinsey, is undoubtedly the most significant example of this phenomenon. He was in charge of communications strategy in 2017 at En Marche before becoming Mounir Mahjoubi’s chief of staff at the State Secretariat for Digital, a position he still holds.
The relentless movement between En Marche and the state council is also a two-way street. Some who were not strategy consultants became so after May 2017. Additional proof of the compatibility between the two worlds: the arrival, announced at the end of September, of Emmanuel Macron’s former adviser, Ismaël Emelien, as a consultant in strategy, specifically in the environmental sector, with business magnate Bernard Arnault, is a shining illustration of this. I will stop here for now, as I believe I have illustrated my case.
One can only wonder about the enormous weight of McKinsey in the decisions that were, and still are, taken in the management of the Covid-19 crisis in France, all done behind the opaque corporate bunker erected by Macron and McKinsey.
McKinsey and the Health Defense Council
During the early hours of the COVID pandemic, the first step taken by President Macron was to set up a “Health Defense Council,” yet another layer of bureaucracy which provided the secrecy required to operate in the dark, with each participant being subject to a form of security clearance that the defense secrecy and national security apparatus afforded them. This cannot be a coincidence, as it ensures all meetings will be held under a non-disclosure, and a “need to know basis.”
Of course, the lifting of the defense secrecy layer can be requested, and legally speaking, the Élysée cannot veto it. However, on the other hand, politically, the Minister of Defense will seek the approval of the President of the Republic, meaning Macron would have had the last word anyway.
They were working in a completely unaccountable vacuum away from all checks and balances, unfettered and at ease to do what ever they wanted. Normally, this would be unacceptable, but under the guise of the ‘global pandemic,’ governments effectively suspended the normal bureaucratic and legal due processes, enjoying their newfound statutory and emergency powers. But this veil of secrecy needs to be lifted immediately in order to restore transparency, and to see if overreach of power has been taking place.
Here we must ask a crucial question: were these consultancy firms and vaccines manufacturers allowed in these so-called “Health Defense Council Meetings”? What were the true motives behind Macron’s choice to hold these meetings under a complete veil of secrecy? What were they hiding from the public? As the fall-out from the global vaccine roll-out continues, and the clinical trial and safety data from transnational pharmaceutical firms like Pfizer comes under increased scrutiny, the case against influence peddling, corporate malfeasance, and fraud become more compelling.
The Senate Inquiry has just launched a debate we should have had 10 years ago, and certainly at the very start of the pandemic. These consultancy firms have emptied the vault of the French republic for years, and certainly have contributed to many government cosmetic requirements, but what about the people of France? What did we truly get out of this sweeping ‘reform’ of our country’s decision-making and policy formation structures?
McKinsey will likely be forced to pay the corporate taxes they have been avoiding for along period of time, but this doesn’t in any way address the real problem of collusion present in this very popular trend of erecting a Public Private Partnership.
McKinsey’s ‘Cut & Paste’ templates that cost the French taxpayers millions
The Senate Commission Inquiry into the influence of consulting firms on public policy delivered its conclusions on Thursday March 17, after four months of work. Senator Éliane Assassi brings to light a “sprawling phenomenon,” in her words, and reveals the support of consulting firms on “whole sections of public policy.” Incredibly, few outside the halls of power were even aware this silent corporate coup had been taking place.
In the following video, (below, English subtitled), Assassi confirms having in her possession documents created by McKinsey Australia which were used to advise the Australian health ministries, before going on to explain that these very same documents were used by McKinsey France, with the only change being that the new version displayed the French Ministry of Health logo where the McKinsey logo had been previously. She uses the term ‘cut & paste’ to describe how McKinsey documents are being perceived as the work issued by the French Ministry of Health, when in fact it couldn’t be further from the truth.
The problem doesn’t even stop here, as such documents are then forwarded to the Health Defense Council who held meeting under a strict veil of secrecy forbidding the French taxpayers to see who attends these Health Defense Meetings, and what is being discussed.
Below, Senator Éliane Assassi talks about the ethical inadequacy of this incredible farago.
Indeed, the opacity of Macron’s government has become a trademark of his administration. Essentially, it’s a black box bureaucracy.
Macron and Zelensky: actors’ lines scripted by McKinseConsidering the evidence presented earlier, it can be said that McKinsey created the Macron phenomena from scratch, with the drafting of the controversial “Macron 2” law in 2015, and the creation of his political party En Marche. This is now undisputed.
In light of the current conflict in eastern Europe, if one was to take a serious look at Ukraine and its government, we would find none other than McKinsey & Co., reproducing the very same patterns with the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. In this way, these two “heads” of state are nothing more than actors who perfectly regurgitate prefabricated scenarios scripted by McKinsey.
Many have observed the overt level of control and influence over the government in Kiev by the US Embassy in Kiev, Victoria Nuland, and the US State Department, but few have noticed where the western levers of control are installed inside the government itself. Let’s take the example of Oleksandr Danylyuk, the former Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and Minister of Finance of Ukraine.
Under Zelensky’s leadership and Oleksandr Danylyuk’s close counsel, the Ukrainian Government spiraled into receivership by racking up an enormous debt with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and devised a deadly strategy in the Donbass region, further inflaming the violent civil war in eastern Ukraine.
Incredibly, Danylyuk had previously worked three years in McKinsey’s offices in London and Moscow. His projects included the reform of the UK tax system, as well as the development of strategies and the optimization of operations in the energy and telecommunications sectors.
Moreover, Danylyuk and McKinsey developed the strategy for the Economic Reform Coordination Center of Ukraine. The firm drafted the cooperation agreement with the IMF, and it was Danylyuk who actively supported the signing of the EU-Ukraine association agreement, despite active opposition within the government from the pro-Russian lobbyists.
It doesn’t end there, as McKinsey’s fingerprints are everywhere to be seen, including their timely intervention behind the curtain to stop Germany and Russia’s joint Nord Stream 2 pipeline project.
Again, it was Oleksandr Danyliuk, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, who could be heard saying on several occasions that, “We see Nord Stream 2 as a security threat.”
“Poland, the United States and Ukraine consider the North Stream 2 gas pipeline a threat to national security in the region,” exclaimed Danyliuk.
Where the EU procures its energy supplies wouldn’t normally be of interest to a country like Ukraine, but it is a central issue for realizing Washington and London foreign policy objectives.
Indeed, Danyliuk’s comments echo far, and today we can see the obvious results when observing the United States and the European Commission’s new commitment to severely reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
Their last Joint statement made during Biden’s visit to Brussels is a clear indication that through the Joint European Action on More Affordable, Secure and Sustainable Energy (REPowerEU), the EU has confirmed its goal of becoming completely independent of Russian fossil fuels. As for the US, they will without a shadow of a doubt, take advantage of the situation and try to increase their more expensive LNG gas exports to Europe in an attempt to replace Russian fuel.
The White House announcement on the 26th March 2022 confirms the US intention to rapidly increase exports of liquefied natural gas to Europe, as Germany and other EU nations try desperately to diminish their dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
In many ways, this recent overhaul of European energy policy is also harmonizing with the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” agenda, and stakeholder governments’ “Net Zero” decarbonisation commitments. Here we can remind you again, that McKinsey & Co. is the top strategic advisor to the WEF.
Steering the Medical Industrial Complex
Their proximity with the drug and vaccine manufacturers provides room for more conflict of interest to take place. If only it ended there.
According to McKinsey’s website, the firm is also supporting major players in the pharmaceutical and medical devices industry to help them anticipate changes in the sector, design innovative approaches and develop the skills that will guarantee their ‘sustainable performance’ and more profitable growth.
For instance, Aamir Malik, Pfizer’s Executive Vice President and Chief Business Innovation Officer, is responsible for the company’s strategy and business development. But looking into his professional experience, we discover he was the Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company’s United States operation, and previously led the firm’s Global Pharmaceutical and Medical Products Practice.
A Senior executive of McKinsey at Pfizer should trigger a lot of alarm bells, especially knowing McKinsey was appointed by Macron’s government and the French Ministry of Health to plan and implement the national vaccination strategy.
Who would be naive enough to believe there isn’t any conflict of interest here?
Was the COVID-19 pandemic the most lucrative Public Private Partnership ever conceived?
And why are we left with the feeling this was all orchestrated to help us swallow another blue pill; ask yourself, how is it that McKinsey, Macron, and Zelensky are all active members of the World Economic Forum?
In the modern era, transparency and accountability in government have long been regarded as the very pillars of our democracy, and today I can say with confidence that France, my beautiful country, has been the victim of a coup d’état beginning in 2017, when a group of conspirators helped Macron ascend to the throne, and with the help of very unscrupulous individuals, consultancy companies, banks and government representatives, they promoted and implemented a pernicious agenda spearheaded by the World Economic Forum in Davos and a powerful transnational pharmaceutical lobby, and drafted by the McKinsey-Accenture corporate bloc.
McKinseyGate has only just begun.
Guillaume Jacquot, writing in the French publication Publicsenat.fr,
“The Senate commission of inquiry into the influence of consulting firms on public policy has delivered its conclusions, after four months of work. It highlights a “growing” use of private consultants and pinpoints a “proven influence”, through interventions on “major reforms”. It calls for putting an end to opacity and hardening the ethical framework.
“This report is not an end in itself, but rather a beginning. Highly anticipated, the conclusions of the work of the Senate commission of inquiry into the influence of consulting firms on public policy were made public on March 17. After four months of investigations and hearings, the senators hope to "feed the public debate" based on their findings. Their hearings and the revelation of documents, obtained under the powers of a commission of inquiry, enabled the general public to make this reality better known. For calibration reasons, the survey focused on orders from the State and its major operators, leaving aside the specific case of local authorities.
The intervention of consultants in the management of the health crisis from 2020 was one of the starting points of this commission, formed on the proposal of the communist, republican, citizen and environmentalist group (CRCE). This was only the “tip of the iceberg”. In reality, Senator Eliane Assassi's report brings to light a "sprawling phenomenon", in her words, and reveals the support of consulting firms on "whole sections of public policy".
According to the report, “consulting firms intervened in most of the major reforms of the five-year term, thus strengthening their place in public decision-making”. The commission of inquiry cites, for example, the reform of personalized housing assistance (APL), on which the firm McKinsey intervened, for the IT component (a service worth four million euros), the reform of legal aid for which was called upon with the help of the firm EY, or the simplification of access to rights for people with disabilities, on which Capgemini worked. Roland Berger provided support in the reform of vocational training.
More than a billion euros minimum in consulting expenditure for ministries and public operators last year
The use of private consulting services did not start under Emmanuel Macron's five-year term. However, the senators note a clear acceleration of this practice. The recourse is described as “massive” and “increasing”. According to their calculations, State Council expenditure exceeded one billion euros, the rapporteur does not hesitate to use the expression "crazy dough", which had been used by Emmanuel Macron on social benefits. This is only a minimum estimate because the commission of inquiry did not question all the public operators, but only the most important (such as Pôle Emploi and the Caisse des Dépôts et consignations). The commission also notes that the Matignon circular – published during their work in January– is late and incomplete. She considers the objective of reducing expenditure by 15% for consulting services “unambitious”.
From 2018 to 2021, the progression is constant. Expenditure by ministries in this area has been multiplied by 2.36. Before the senatorial commission of inquiry, the Court of Auditors itself recognized that it was difficult to provide an exhaustive figure. In their recommendations, the senators ask that the list of consulting services commissioned by the State and its operators be published each year, in “open data”. Moreover, the commission is starting the movement now, by publishing in open data the list of consulting services carried out at the request of the ministries between 2018 and 2021.
By studying the different missions of the firms operated on behalf of the public authorities, the commission of inquiry is concerned about a "risk of dependence of the administration" in their regard. "The use of consulting firms may have become the reflex of a State which sometimes gives the feeling that it no longer knows how to do", write the parliamentarians. This dependence is illustrated in particular for IT consulting, an area where the State lacks human resources.
During the health crisis, the call for consulting firms was not only limited to the first wave, a period when the State was unprepared and when Europe was surprised by the scale of the contaminations. However, the use of private consultants continued throughout the duration of the health crisis. McKinsey intervened for the logistical organization and monitoring of the vaccination campaign, from November 2020 to February 4, 2022. The cabinets lent a hand to the State on key aspects of the crisis. Accenture intervened for the implementation of information systems such as the vaccination pass. Citywell advised the State on the supply and management of masks, from March to October 2020. But not only. Some documents go back to the Defense Council,
In total, 68 orders were placed by the State with consultants, for a total amount of 41.05 million euros. According to the senators, who are based on a sample of five firms, the intervention of a consultant is billed on average 2,168 euros per day.
“Unequal” quality of deliverables
If the Ministry of Health has repeatedly defended the added value of these cabinets in a context where the staff of central administrations have been in great demand, the interest of other missions raises questions, according to the report. The senators believe in particular that the deliverables, that is to say the documents produced by the firms as part of their missions, are "of unequal quality". The quality is sometimes even questioned. In the middle of the report, we learn that the Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (DITP) was dissatisfied with McKinsey's work to support the strategy for setting up the public support service in 2019. The evaluation of the DITP regrets “a lack of legal culture and more broadly in the public sector”. In other cases, the DITP is surprised by the “juniority” of certain consultants, even going so far as to ask for the replacement of certain consultants who are “not up to standard”. For the Senate, the evaluation should be systematic, and penalties should apply when the quality is not there.
It also happens that certain services have “no tangible follow-up”. The most publicized example, revealed during the hearings , remains this preparation of a symposium on the future of the teaching profession, carried out by McKinsey at the request of the Ministry of National Education, for an amount of 496,800 euros . “It is not possible to determine the direct consequences” of this contribution, according to the ministry quoted by the senatorial report.
The commission of inquiry was not only interested in the proper use of public funds. She was particularly attentive to public decision-making. Whether representatives of consulting firms or ministries: all confirmed that the decision was up to politicians. The Senate commission, however, highlights more insidious processes, evoking a "proven influence of consulting firms on decision-making". Through their participation in think tanks, they intervene in public debate. "Some of their publications, which are particularly numerous during the election period, even resemble political programs", insists the report. More problematic, above all, would be the existence of "oriented arbitrations", according to the conclusions of the commission of inquiry, which is based on several examples. The report summarizes things as follows: “Consulting firms have a habit of 'prioritizing' the scenarios proposed – with the agreement, or even at the request, of the administration –, which reinforces their weight in public decision-making. »
Rules of conduct: the report calls for "redouble our vigilance"
The integration of consultants directly into the teams , a practice observed during the health crisis, seems to have moved the senators. According to the report, some consultants even have an e-mail address with the ministry's domain name. The most striking example was the drafting of documents “under the seal of the administration”. McKinsey used it during the health crisis at the Ministry of Health. “This working method reinforces the opacity of consulting services because it does not make it possible to distinguish between the contribution of the consultants, on the one hand, and that of the administration, on the other. In their recommendations, the senators ask to put an end to this possibility, for the “traceability” of the services.
Last part, and not least, in the viewfinder of the commission of inquiry: the ethical obligations. "The intervention of consulting firms can [...] legitimately raise concerns in terms of ethics", had thus underlined Didier Migaud, president of the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) .
Rules exist, both on the public side and in the charters of the firms. The report nevertheless pleads for a strengthening of the current framework. "Nevertheless, we must be extra vigilant because of the influence that consulting firms can exert on public decision-making, in particular for strategy consulting", plead the senators. Because several risks have been identified.
First of all, there are the potential conflicts of interest, when the firms advise public authorities as well as private actors. As such, the report recommends imposing a declaration of interests, so that the administration prevents any incident. The HATVP would be responsible for intervening. In general, any breach of obligations should be subject to exclusion from public contracts, consider the senators.
Another difficulty, highlighted in the report: the “porosity” when firms recruit former public officials into their teams. The "pantouflage" is very real. An example is given. "Among the 22 profiles proposed" by the BCG and EY firms in their response to the 2018 DITP framework agreement, "6 are former high-level public officials (including a former economic adviser to the Élysée and a former adviser to the Secretary of State for Industry),” the report points out.
The senators finally ask to prohibit pro bono services, that is to say these services provided free of charge, for the “public good”. Skills sponsorship should be reserved, according to the commission of inquiry, only for non-commercial sectors (humanitarian, cultural, social). Pro bono interventions constitute a risk for the “foot in the door” phenomenon, to use the expression heard during a committee hearing.
The report, adopted unanimously by committee members on March 16, will be translated into a legislative proposal. A "transpartisan" bill has already been announced.”
Comments