Paris (AFP)

Alexandre Benalla, ex-charge of mission at the Elysee Palace, was sent back to correctional for "forgery" and "use of forgery" and "public use and without the right of documents justifying a professional quality" at the end of the investigation on his diplomatic and service passports, AFP learned from a judicial source on Wednesday.

This is the first referral to trial of the former collaborator of Emmanuel Macron, whose name emerged with the scandal of the violence committed during a demonstration on May 1, 2018 in Paris.

In addition to the passport case, he is the target of five other judicial inquiries.

In an order dated January 25, the investigating judges in charge of this section therefore referred Mr. Benalla, 30, to the criminal court for "public use and without the right to documents proving professional quality" as regards for the use of two diplomatic passports, and for "forgery and use of forgery" concerning his service passport.

The investigation aimed to clarify the conditions under which the former official in charge of the Elysee Palace used diplomatic passports to travel to Africa and Israel, where he was starting his conversion as an international security consultant, after his appointment. examination in July 2018 for violence during May 1 and his dismissal.

He also held a service passport obtained, according to the prosecution, by fraudulently producing a letter on the letterhead of the Elysée chief of staff, François-Xavier Lauch, but "typed" and not signed.

Mr. Lauch, now deputy chief of staff to the Minister of the Interior Gerald Darmanin, was summoned as a civil party after filing a complaint against Alexandre Benalla, of whom he was at the time the superior.

"Alexandre Benalla who had initially been left under the status of assisted witness in this case has always disputed the facts and their criminal qualification," his lawyer, Me Jacqueline Laffont, told AFP.

"In addition, it was shown during the investigation that the administrative practice of the + original signed + did exist, and was used in particular in certain departments of the Elysee," she added.

After initially affirming before the Senate to have left them in his office at the Elysee Palace, Mr. Benalla had admitted having recovered and used these passports, then having returned them.

According to Mediapart and Le Monde, Mr. Benalla used one of his two diplomatic passports to enter several African countries.

© 2021 AFP