PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2022 election campaign finances have been cleared by an audit commission, the body said on Friday.

They had come under scrutiny amid a wider controversy linked to US consultancy McKinsey’s ties to Mr Macron’s government.

The independent state body said it had received two tips about alleged irregularities in Mr Macron’s re-election campaign accounts. They had cited “irregular” assistance from unspecified consultancies.

But the commission said they appeared to be unfounded.

“As things stands, (the commission) has no evidence to call into question the content and scope of (Macron’s) statement”, the audit commission said. It added that Mr Macron had denied the accusations when the body questioned him about it.

The decision provides some relief to Mr Macron. The audit is entirely separate from an ongoing investigation carried out by financial prosecutors.

It’s focused on whether Mr Macron’s government has handed out contracts to consulting firms in return for the pro bono work their employees did in his campaign.

There has so far been no evidence of law-breaking from either Mr Macron or his government on this issue. But the so-called “McKinsey affair” has been used by political opponents to portray the French leader as in cahoots with big business.

Government ministers were forced to admit they “went too far” in the government’s use of consulting firms, after the huge sums paid to such firms during the Covid-19 pandemic prompted outrage and parliamentary investigations.

The judicial investigation into the use of consulting firms is the closest to have come to Mr Macron, who swept to power promising to clean up politics in France.

Mr Macron has said his campaign accounts had been flawless and that, as president, he does not directly deal with public tenders, adding: “The core of the investigation is not about me.”

With his campaign accounts now cleared and confirmation he did not break the legal ceiling applied to presidential election spending, Mr Macron will get back about 10.4 million euros (S$14.9 million) from the state towards his campaign spending.

All the other contenders in the 2022 presidential election had their campaign accounts cleared by the state body. REUTERS