France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, is facing some unexpected early heat after it was disclosed that the Paris prosecutor’s office is investigating suspected irregularities in the production of a costly marketing event at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
An Associated Press report says the probe concerns “French Tech Night,” as it was branded at the show, and the advertising agency, Havas, that got a no-bid contract from the government to organize it.
It’s not clear what role, if any, Macron played. The award was authorized by Muriel Penicaud, who headed a government agency called Business France, which operated under Macron when he was minister of the economy. But Penicaud is now the president’s labor minister, charged with introducing changes aimed at easing the country’s famously difficult rules for hiring and firing workers and reducing the power of organized labor, and the reforms have already angered unions and are expected to spark protests by left-wing groups that see Macron as too friendly to the business world.
Penicaud has acknowledged a “procedural error” in the process but says she launched an internal and external audit and addressed the issue.
Havas maintains that it was not required to compete for the contract because it signed an umbrella agreement with Business France in 2015 for promoting French businesses abroad. The CES event was designed to market French technology startups.
The cost of the party also has come under criticism. It came to €238,000, roughly $271,000 at current exchange rates, including more than €100,000 for renting a conference hall at the Linq hotel on the Las Vegas Strip and other hotel costs.
