Alexandre Benalla is about to spend a second time on the grill on Monday. The former employee of the Elysee will face the senators of the parliamentary commission of inquiry. The one who is currently indicted, both for the violence committed on May 1, 2018 in Paris and for the improper use of diplomatic passports, will have to answer questions, notably Jean-Pierre Sueur, co-rapporteur of this commission. senatorial inquiry. And he warned Sunday on Europe 1: "We [have] a lot to ask."
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Diplomatic passports. Three points remain to be clarified. On the issue of passports, Alexandre Benalla had indicated on 19 September to these same senators to have returned after his dismissal from the Elysee. When it was revealed that he had used it to travel to Chad at the end of the year, Emmanuel Macron's former collaborator claimed that an Elyos agent had given them to him.
But last week, Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff, then Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, confirmed that Benalla had used his passports improperly as early as August. Did he lie before the Senate commission of inquiry? "We are looking for the truth, the dysfunctions", explained Jean-Pierre Sueur.
"Contradictory procedure". Another question: how did Alexander Benalla get his last diplomatic passport, when the request was made to the Foreign Ministry when he was suspended from his post at the end of May 2018? According to Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff, this initiative was individual, and was made through the use of a scythe, using without authorization the letterhead of the chiefdom. Jean-Pierre Sueur now wants the principal concerned to answer these accusations. "We respect the contradictory procedure," he said.
"Fortunately, the Senate exists". Finally, Alexandre Benalla "had a hyper-secure phone" when he was at the Elysee, recalled the committee's co-rapporteur. "He left and did not return anything at all, all of which shows that there was a disruption of the machine, as if a whole lot of things had started to malfunction."
It remains to be seen how to reconcile this parliamentary inquiry and that of justice by respecting the strict separation of powers. Does the commission encroach on the judges' court? "Completely false, arch-false," said Jean-Pierre Sueur, who assured that senators respected "the strict framework of the field that is [their]". "We do not condemn anyone, fortunately the Senate exists because the National Assembly's inquiry committee exploded in the air."