McDonald's France will pay a historic fine for fraud

Fast food company McDonald's has agreed to pay more than one billion euros in fine in France to avoid criminal prosecution for tax evasion, as part of a legal public interest agreement approved Thursday by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office.

After six years of investigation, and as a result of a complaint filed by the French Workers' Council and the group's employees' union office, a record high fine, the largest in France to date, was imposed on tax evasion on the giant American chain.

It is suspected that McDonald's artificially reduced its profits in France to avoid paying taxes.

To avoid being sued in France for tax fraud, it decided to pay 1.25 billion euros, the first time the company had paid such an amount offered by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office under the public interest judicial agreement.

McDonald's, which has about 1,500 points of sale in France, has only ten days to pay 1.245 billion euros to the French public treasury at a time when the country is suffering from high public spending and inflation.

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