• Alexandre Benalla is on trial from Friday before the Paris Court of Appeal.

    Justice accuses him of having assaulted and arrested demonstrators on May 1, 2018, while he was following the police as an observer.

    He is also accused of having illegally possessed a firearm - exhibited in a photo revealed in the press - and of having continued to travel with diplomatic passports several months after his dismissal.

  • This former member of Emmanuel Macron's cabinet was sentenced, at the end of 2021, at first instance, to three years in prison, including one year.

  • However, the hearing could be postponed, because the young man of 31 years could file a request for dismissal for "personal reason".

Alexandre Benalla facing justice, second act.

The former Elysée official is appearing before the Paris Court of Appeal from this Friday for violence committed on the sidelines of the demonstration of May 1, 2018. At first instance, he had received a sentence of three years in prison - including one closed under an electronic bracelet - for molesting three men and two women.

The images, which had triggered a real scandal, showed him wearing a police helmet when he was supposed to be only an "observer" of the device for maintaining order.

During the trial at first instance, Alexandre Benalla, now 31, had constantly minimized his actions, evoking "poorly mastered technical gestures" and contesting any "voluntary violence".

He believed he had acted as a "citizen" to "control someone who [had] committed violence against police officers", as authorized, according to him, by law in certain circumstances.

"I absolutely do not regret what I did," he told the hearing.

Towards a new defense strategy?

A positioning that had quite annoyed the president, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez.

On reading her judgment, the magistrate had denounced the defendant's "feeling of impunity and omnipotence".

The strong man of Emmanuel Macron's security system, now converted into the private sector, had waited until the last day of his trial to recognize "an error in judgment" and concede that he should have "stayed in his place" the day of the events.

On the other hand, he always maintained that he had "done no police work" that day, although he was wearing a helmet belonging to them.

At the helm, the plaintiffs were nevertheless convinced that they had dealt with a real policeman.

Will he change his defense strategy?

We may have to wait a bit to find out.

One of his lawyers, Me Jacqueline Laffont, told AFP that the hearing could be postponed, her client considering filing a request for dismissal for "personal reasons".

Contacted by

20 Minutes

, the council did not respond to our requests.

Alexandre Benalla will also have to answer before the Court of Appeal for "forgery, use of forgery in writing and public use without the right to a badge" for having continued to travel with diplomatic passports after his dismissal from the Elysée.

He also held a service passport obtained fraudulently according to the prosecution.

A "stupid skit" with a "fake weapon"

Last but not least: the former close collaborator of the President of the Republic is accused of having illegally carried a handgun in 2017. At the heart of the scandal, a photo of him pointing the gun at the head a woman's.

It is "a silly skit" with "a fake weapon", he had assured in the first instance.

The photo, revealed by

Mediapart

, was taken in April 2017, in Poitiers.

However, before October 13, 2017, Alexandre was not authorized to carry a weapon outside his home or the premises of En Marche.

His sidekick Vincent Crase, at the time in charge of the security of En Marche, is also on the bench of the defendants for "violence in meetings", "prohibited carrying" of a telescopic baton and "interference in a public office" for illegally participating in the arrest of three people.

He is also accused of having forced one of these people to erase a video taken with his mobile phone.

A long-time friend of Alexandre Benalla, the 49-year-old reservist ex-gendarme had been sentenced at first instance to a two-year suspended prison sentence and a ban on carrying a weapon.

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  • Justice

  • Alexandre Benalla

  • Court case

  • May 1

  • Court

  • Elysium

  • Emmanuel Macron

  • Demonstration