Benalla affair turns to political crisis – Europe



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The political crisis provoked by the Benalla affair in France continues to grow, feeding in particular on the silence of President Emmanuel Macron, with a possible indictment on Sunday of his former collaborator and the hearing on Monday of the Minister of the Interior to the Assembly.

Five people in total were to be presented in the day to an examining magistrate: Alexandre Benalla, filmed striking and mistreating demonstrators on May 1 and who was in custody since Friday morning, Vincent Crase, an employee of the presidential party LREM who was at his side during Labor Day, and three police officers suspected of having transmitted to Mr. Benalla images of video surveillance.

The woman and the man struck on 1 May have asked to be heard later by the investigators.

While the revelations succeed one another in this file, in particular on the advantages granted to Alexandre Benalla – housing of func in a dependency of the Elysee Palace, badge of access to the hemicycle of the National Assembly – the head of state, faced with its most serious political crisis since his election in May 2017, has remained until then

According to the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, Emmanuel Macron spoke on the phone, since the revelations of Le Monde on Wednesday evening, to his chargé de mission, fired Friday morning.

While the spokesman of the Elysee Bruno Roger-Petit had said Thursday that he was after May 1 "removed from office in the organization of the security of travel of the President", Mr. Benalla appears on several recent snapshots alongside Mr. Macron or the presidential couple, including July 13 in Giverny, in Normandy (north-west).

The tenors of the opposition went to the front to ask the president "accounts", in the words of Laurent Wauquiez (LR, right). The case is "the level of Watergate", considers the leader of the Rogue (radical left) Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

But according to the spokesman of the Republic in progress (LREM), Gabriel Attal, if the president spoke "on this case, we would find everywhere commentators to be indignant at the potential weight of his words on the investigations In progress". "It seems that (his word) would interfere," also considers Marc Fesneau, leader of the centrist MPs MoDem (LREM ally), Sunday at France Info.

– "Case Macron-Benalla" –

The first to give some explanations should be the Minister of the Interior Gerard Collomb, expected Monday at 0800 GMT before the Committee on the Laws of the Assembly, which has the prerogatives of investigation. Opposition deputies, who accuse him of lying Thursday in front of the Senate, the upper house of the French bicameral parliament, should put him on the grill.

According to the daily Le Parisien, a crisis lunch was held Saturday around Emmanuel Macron at the presidential palace of the Elysee, bringing together Gerard Collomb and Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet.

This is on the front line of the Assembly, in theory on the draft constitutional revision, whose examination has been blocked since Thursday evening. So much so that the government decided Sunday morning to suspend its examination until further notice.

"The government has decided to suspend the examination of the constitutional revision and wishes that it can resume later under more serene conditions ", announced Nicole Belloubet.

For its part the Speaker of the Assembly François de Rugy (LREM) indicated that the meeting would resume Monday at 16H00, scheduled time of examination of a draft law on training, apprenticeship and unemployment insurance

Since Thursday the hemicycle was the scene of a standoff around what the boss of the LR group Christian Jacob called the "Macron-Benalla affair".

In a tense atmosphere, oppositions demanded the arrival of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe or "at least" the Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament, Christophe Castaner.

"We do not let go," it was said in the ranks of the majority, while Saturday night, the night session was cut short after hours of dialogue deaf.

The elected UDI-Agir (center-right) had for their part decided not to "participate in this sad spectacle."

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