• Alexandre Benalla is tried from Monday and for three weeks in Paris.

    Emmanuel Macron's former collaborator at the Elysee Palace is accused of having assaulted and arrested demonstrators on May 1, 2018, while following the police as an observer.

  • He is also on trial for having detained a firearm which he exhibited in the press, and for having continued to travel with diplomatic passports several months after his dismissal.

  • Beside him on the defendants' bench, Vincent Crase, a former employee of LREM also present during the demonstration on May 1, and two former high-ranking officers of the Prefecture of Police who gave Benalla images from surveillance cameras.

Until then, life smiled on Emmanuel Macron.

In this month of July 2018, the head of state, elected a year earlier, relishes the title of the Blues at the World Cup.

The yellow vest is still only a road safety accessory and the coronavirus a bad science fiction scenario.

Suddenly, in the torpor of summer, the newspaper

Le Monde

reveals that one of his close collaborators was filmed, on May 1, wearing a visor helmet of the police, hitting a man on the Place de la Contrescarpe, in Paris.

End of the state of grace.

The Benalla affair will poison the first part of the President of the Republic's mandate. In the press, which connects the revelations, the one who presented himself as deputy to the chief of staff of the head of state returns two images. That of a believer who has become the shadow man of a power that protects him. That of an amateur who entered the Elysee Palace thanks to the sole confidence of Emmanuel Macron, who plays the secret agent and has exceeded his rights. Thirteen days of hearing will perhaps unravel the Benalla mystery.

Now 30 years old, the former head of mission at the Elysee converted into the private sector appears from Monday, in particular for "voluntary violence in meetings", "untitled interference in the exercise of a public function "," Public and unlawful use of a badge "or" disclosure of video protection images ".

At his side on the bench of the defendants, Vincent Crase, a former employee of the Republic on the march present on May 1 at the Place de la Contrescarpe, and two former high ranks of the police headquarters, Maxime Creusat and Laurent Simonin, accused of having passed on to Alexandre Benalla images captured by surveillance cameras.

Water gun and diplomatic passports

There are therefore the facts of May 1, those filmed in particular by Taha Bouhafs and which have made the rounds of social networks. Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase questioned and beat demonstrators, police armbands around their biceps and radio terminals on their belts. For police witnesses of the scene, questioned later by investigators, they are necessarily colleagues in civilian clothes. It seemed all the more plausible since one of them was armed. How can we imagine that these two men actually work for the Elysée and are only present this Saturday as observers?

Throughout the investigation, Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase assured that they had helped the police to arrest demonstrators who threw projectiles at them.

But the investigating judge in charge of this case considered that their intervention "did not appear necessary".

For the magistrate, the police officers mobilized were quite numerous and sufficiently mastered the situation to do without the help of the defendants.

The matter could have ended there.

But after the publication of the article in

Le Monde

, Alexandre Benalla was given, in a shisha bar, video surveillance images of the demonstrations of May 1 by two somewhat zealous police officers who wanted to help him defend himself.

The political crisis worsens a little more over the revelations about this close friend of Emmanuel Macron. Among them is a photo of Benalla pointing a gun at the head of a woman taking a selfie. At first, the one who was part of the security pool of the Elysee ensures that it is a montage. Since it is actually a water pistol ...

And there is this passport affair, for which he is appearing for "forgery, use of forgery in writing and public use without the right of a badge".

Alexandre Benalla is accused of having used diplomatic passports to travel to Africa and Israel, where he was beginning his conversion as an international security consultant after his dismissal from the Elysee Palace.

He also held a service passport obtained, according to the prosecution, by fraudulently producing a letter on the letterhead of Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff, François-Xavier Lauch, "typed" and unsigned.

Other ongoing investigations

Other disturbing facts involving the 30-something are of interest to justice and are still being investigated.

One, under the aegis of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF), concerns suspicion of "corruption" in a contract between Vincent Crase's company, Mars, and a sulphurous Russian oligarch.

A second, entrusted since November 2019 to an examining magistrate, concerns the mysterious safe that the ex-project manager had at his home to store his weapons, and on the contents of another safe in his office in the Elysee.

Finally, the Paris prosecutor's office has been investigating since April 2019 on suspicions of "false testimony" before the Senate commission of inquiry.

While Emmanuel Macron will enter the campaign for 2022, the legal troubles of the one who called him "boss" are far from over.

This first trial is to last until October 1.

Justice

Benalla case: Emmanuel Macron's former collaborator tried from September 13 to October 1 for the violence of May 1 and the passport case

Justice

The crazy evening of Alexandre Benalla at the Damas Café after the revelations of the "World"

  • LREM

  • Trial

  • May 1

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Alexandre benalla

  • Justice