French prosecutors raid General Electric site on tax fraud probe -AFP

(Reuters) -Prosecutors searched U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co's industrial site in eastern France on Thursday as part of an inquiry into claims it avoided millions of euros in taxes by transferring profits abroad, AFP reported.

The tax inquiry was started after Fabien Roussel, the head of France's Communist Party, told authorities in July 2019 of his "suspicions of tax optimisation and fraud" by the company, the report said.

GE and France's National Financial Prosecutors' Office did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Tensions between unions and GE management have run high as the company cut hundreds of French jobs on slumping demand for gas turbines and other power-generation equipment, the report added.

In 2019, General Electric had announced a plan to cut around 1,000 jobs in France, principally at its site in Belfort, to cut costs.

The works' council and unions at the site filed a complaint in May last year, alleging that GE had transferred 555 million euros ($589.58 million) of profit from the Belfort site to Switzerland or the United States, according to the report.

The unions also accused the company of trying to show the site was losing money in order to justify the job cuts, AFP said.

($1 = 0.9414 euros)

(Reporting by Gokul Pisharody in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Bill Berkrot)

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