01h25 – Case Benalla: Macron breaks the silence and poses as "only responsible"

"The only person responsible for this case is me and I alone!" Emmanuel Macron came out with a crash of his silence in the Benalla affair on Tuesday after an electric day in Parliament which saw the executive conduct a concerted offensive and hearings continue.

"If they want a responsible , it is before you, that they come to seek it ", launched, bravache, the head of the State Tuesday evening before his government and his parliamentary majority almost in the big one.

While he remained mutique after several days of disorder, blockages and tensions, and as the pressure intensified to give his vision of a case that touches him as closely as possible, Emmanuel Macron chose an unexpected setting and a moment – a pot of end of parliamentary session at the House of Latin America in Paris – to express oneself. One way to show that he was still master of the clocks and captain of the ship.

"You can not be a leader in good weather and escape when the weather is difficult," he said in a speech about half an hour, partly devoted to the turmoil born of the broadcast of videos showing Alexandre Benalla, his close collaborator, hitting protesters on May 1.

"The one who trusted Alexandre Benalla is I, the President of the Republic.The one who knew and validated the order, the sanction of my subordinates, it is me and nobody else ", notably hammered the head of the State, affirming that "No one has ever been protected."

Ironically, he began his intervention by saying that "Alexandre Benalla never held the nuclear codes, Alexandre Benalla has never occupied a 300 m2 apartment at the 'Alma, Alexandre Benalla has never won 10,000 euros, Alexandre Benalla him no never again was my lover. "

Denouncing" the Republic of Fuses, the Republic of Hatred, the one in which an official is bribed here, a collaborator there ", Mr. Macron also supported his" teams at the Elysee "who" did what they had to do ". Mr. Benalla's simple layoff of 15 days was "proportionate at that time and I badume it," he defended himself.

But the president also evoked his feeling of "disappointment" and of "betrayal" after the acts of Alexander Benalla, described by the macronia as "an individual drift" and not "a matter of state" for two days.

"If this is the case why wait until last week to get him fired, why to have him in fact maintained in his functions? Why to have it covered? The storytelling does not work any more … ", blasted on Twitter the first secretary of the PS Olivier Faure, for which" the real courage it is to take responsibility before the press reveals the scandal. "

Emmanuel Macron" must always speak to the French, "we have cracked in the entourage of Republican boss (LR) Laurent Wauquiez.

"+ Qu? They come to get me + (#Macron) …: not very fair play when the Constitution (what we do not contest) protects it precisely from any obligation of rendering account ", tweeted for its part the president of the National Rally (RN, ex-FN), Marine Le Pen.

For their part, LREM MEPs welcomed Tuesday a "welcome" speech by a "baduming" President of the Republic.

Before the surprise intervention of Mr. Macron, Edouard Philippe rose to the Parliament floor by answering 17 of the 26 questions to the government of the day between the Assembly and the Senate, related to the affair

Faced with the rolling questions of the group leaders, from Christian Jacob (LR) to Valérie Rabault (PS) via André Chbadaigne (PCF) or Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI), the Prime Minister repeated to the Assembly, under the ovations of the majority and the jeers of the opposition, that "nothing has been masked, nothing has been omitted ".

million. Philippe admitted "questions" about the "proportionality" of the penalty imposed at the beginning of May to Mr. Benalla, but judged "the celerity" of the answer "not questionable".

At the same time in the Assembly, the Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff, Patrick Strzoda, also pleaded before the Assembly's Committee on Laws, still in the process of forming an inquiry commission.

M. Strzoda explained in particular why he did not report the facts committed by Mr. Benalla to justice, noting in particular that the experts of the IGPN (General Inspectorate of the National Police) had badyzed the scene, and that "no information this badysis "going in the direction of a report had been communicated to him.

The Secretary General of the Elysee Alexis Kohler, right arm of the head of state, will answer him Thursday senators. Finally, Gerard Collomb, first auditioned by the deputies on Monday, was again heard by senators on Tuesday for more than two hours.

The exit of Mr. Macron will she relapse the tension in parliament, while the review of the constitutional bill in the Assembly was postponed to September? The chairman of the LR Christian Jacob group had in any case announced at noon the next deposit of a motion of censure against the government so that it "explains itself."

It is unlikely to be voted, but announces the prospect of a long debate for Édouard Philippe. Insubordinate France, which seeks to table its own motion with the support of Communists and Socialists, has not ruled out voting on LR.