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A French President's security officer, Emmanuel Macron, was taken into custody and removed from his post after being filmed hitting and stamping a man on the edge of a police station. Paris demonstration while he was a policeman
Alexandre Benalla was interrogated by investigators on Friday morning after attending a police station. The French public prosecutor has opened a preliminary investigation into a number of potential charges against him, including acts of violence by a public official, pretending to be a member of the police and illegally using police insignia
. terminate Benalla's employment contract after "new facts" have appeared about the incident.
Macron was criticized for the slowness of his office's reaction to the scandal, the worst crisis so far of his presidency. It is damaging to the young centrist president because it challenges his promise to lead an "exemplary" republic.
Several left-to-right politicians insisted on a parliamentary inquiry into how a presidential security official could have appeared by wearing a police armband and visor, committing violence between real police officers without being arrested. There was anger and surprise that senior officials of the Elysee, who learned of the incident in May, did not qualify as a crime.
The scandal erupted when the newspaper Le Monde published Wednesday a video showing Benalla, a senior security official at the Elysee, in a Paris square where the riot police were firing tear gas and was traveling to youth on May 1, at May Day street rallies.
Benalla, wearing a police visor, is seen seizing and dragging a woman, then dragging, hitting and trampling on an unarmed young man who seems to be in pain. The many riot police seem to let Benalla lead the violence.
A witness who saw the incident said: "What I looked at was not normal, it was extraordinary, it was not legal and it was They were not techniques used by the police.It is unacceptable, I am extremely angry and I want the justice system, the police and the administration to act against this staff member of the presidency. "
Benalla, who previously worked as a bodyguard and has never been employed as a police officer, had asked the Élysée permission to use a day off for" observe police operations "during the marches in Paris.
There was amazement on the part of opposition politicians that Benalla had not been immediately fired at that time. A spokesman for the Elysee said that in May, after the incident, Benalla had been suspended for two weeks and then allowed to remain in his job, redirecting himself to administrative tasks.
Despite the insistence of the Élysée, he did more than just administrative tasks. The BFM TV channel revealed that Benalla was in the bus for the World Cup soccer world cup parade of the French team this week on the Champs-Elysees.
A second bodyguard who was working for Macron's security operation at the Élysée was also introduced at the beginning of the video, wearing a police armband, dragging and shaking violently the young man, raising his hand as if to strike him. He was identified by the Elysee as Vincent Crase, a Reservist Constable employed by the Presidential Party, The Republic On March, who occasionally worked for the security operation of the Elysee.
Crase had "exceeded his authorization" to observe the police operation, said a spokesman, adding that he had been suspended and that the palace had stopped working with him.
The French police oversight body opened its own investigation into how the two men had been dressed as officers and allowed to act violently without being arrested.
Left and right politicians suggested that there had been a camouflage and asked why the incident had not been reported to the police when it was revealed.
The leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon said: to be allowed to pretend to be a police officer alongside the police, we are no longer in the rule of law. "
Socialist Party leader Olivier Faure said there was a double standard in how Benalla was treated as a citizen.
Benalla was a familiar face during the 2017 presidential campaign from Macron and walked regularly near the candidate as part of his security operation.When Macron won the election, Benalla was transferred to the security staff of the Elysee.
The pro-business president intended to spend this week on domestic visits to try to counter his recent decline in ratings, and to get rid of the lingering etiquette that he is a "president of "Does not do enough to help those in
During a walk in southwestern France, Macron was asked if the Benalla scandal was calling the reputation of the French Republic into question. declared that the Republic was "unalterable" and refused to answer any other questions.
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