Paris (AFP)

"I was pinned to the ground": two demonstrators told the Paris court on Thursday of the violence suffered at the Jardin des Plantes on May 1, 2018. Are they the perpetrators?

"No", swore Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase.

In the vast courtroom, all faces are turned towards the screen.

Vertical framing, a rocking phone, the feet of young demonstrators trying to get out of the Parisian park, where they took refuge while the Labor Day procession degenerated.

In the image, they meet three men: Alexandre Benalla, project manager at the Elysee, Vincent Crase, employee of LREM, and the major who accompanied the two "observers" that day.

The second indicates a direction to them then the frame switches: "Hey hey hey, but I did nothing, I did nothing!", Screams a female voice.

Black.

The protagonists of this video face each other, more than three years later, in court, sitting on the same red chairs.

They agree on their meeting but it's on the last few seconds and what happens after the versions diverge dramatically.

"I had no doubts for a second, I was convinced that they were police officers", tells the bar Simon D., now 27 years old, who participated in the procession of May 1 like his friend Mélisande C., author of the video.

Alexandre Benalla (c), helmeted, and Vincent Crase (c, l) grab a protester, May 1, 2018 on the Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris Naguib-Michel SIDHOM AFP / Archives

He confirms having heard one of the three men shout "she films, she films", then to have been "pinned to the ground from behind", "arms crossed" and "held on the ground with either an elbow or a knee".

In this scene of "a few seconds", he remembers being turned around and threatened by a man with a "telescopic baton", before being embarked and placed in police custody for 48 hours - "the worst of (his) life ".

He will come out without prosecution.

The scene takes place around 5:00 p.m., two hours before that of the Place de la Contrescarpe, whose revelation in July 2018 by Le Monde had been the detonator of the "Benalla affair".

It was after the explosion of the scandal that Simon D. identified Vincent C. as "the man with the baton".

And during the investigation, two police officers will affirm that the man who kept him on the ground was Alexandre Benalla.

- "100% categorical" -

"My memories are a projection", in turn restores Mélisande C. "I do not see who catches me, I find myself pinned to the tree. (...) I am terrified, I even arrive not to stop my video and this projection on the tree, it's a fraction of a second, it's hyper violent ".

A man then grabbed her phone, she said, and deleted the video she had just made - the file will then be retrieved by her companion.

Alexandre Benalla Sabrina BLANCHARD AFP

While protesting, she says she heard herself answer: "You just have to go to Cuba, to Venezuela".

Then, when she asked for a police registration number, the man replied with a smile: "007".

Mélisande C. admits it: she cannot "affirm 100%" that it was Vincent Crase, but she is "convinced" of it.

"It's a deduction," she adds.

A version completely denied by the person concerned, who admits to having "given a direction" to the young people but "absolutely not" to have threatened Simon D. with a baton or to have "touched" Mélisande C.

During the investigation, he described a plainclothes policeman "with a head covering" who could have been mistaken for him - a hypothesis rejected after the investigations.

"It is this man who carried out the actions which I am accused of", repeats Vincent Crase.

"I am 100% categorical that it is not me", he insists, "I would be unable to handle a telephone": in technical skills, I am absolutely zero ".

"I think that it is the hypermediatisation of this file which could have brought about these confusions", he slips.

A position shared by Alexandre Benalla.

"I never had any contact, neither physical nor vocal in any way with Mr. D and Mrs. C.," he assures, his broad silhouette slightly leaning at the bar.

"Among ten witnesses, there are two people who say it, they are two police officers who work together. For me it is false, they are lies", he affirms in a loud voice.

There was "no contact, zero, nothing, I am positive about it".

The court must begin in the evening the examination of the alleged violence against the two men on the Place de la Contrescarpe.

© 2021 AFP