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Interior Minister Gérard Collomb cleared Monday of any fault in the management of the Benalla case and discarded the police prefect Michel Delpuech, who defended himself, and on Emmanuel Macron's chief of staff
After Gérard Collomb and Michel Delpuech, the Assembly's Committee of Inquiry will hear Tuesday the Elysée's director of cabinet, Patrick Strzoda, and his counterpart of the Interior, Stéphane Fratacci, auguring an unprecedented dive in the arcane of power.
"It is a political tribunal", denounced on LCI the spokesman of the government Benjamin Griveaux, putting in doubt the "deontology" of the Commission of investigation, in particular of its co-rapporteur, the Republicans Guillaume Larrivé MP.
The videos showing Alexandre Benalla, 26 years old, a close collaborator of the head of the State, striking and mistreating two demonstrators the May 1 in Paris while it acc accompanied by the police as "observers", have continued to have repercussions: Emmanuel Macron is directly implicated, and the parliamentary debates on his constitutional reform were postponed to September.
pressure, the President of the Republic promised, via his entourage, the "truth" on "unacceptable" facts, hoping to extinguish the first serious political crisis of his quinquennium. He badured that there would be "no impunity."
Heard for nearly two and a half hours by the Committee on the Laws of the Assembly with investigative prerogatives, the Minister of the Interior , called to resign by personalities of right and left, had to face a fire of questions.
Gérard Collomb affirmed having been informed the day after the facts by his cabinet of the existence of the video on which one sees Alexandre Benalla attack two protesters in the presence of a staff of the Republic en march (LREM), Vincent Crase, also "observer".
But he felt that it was not his to bring to justice those acts which he again condemned "with the greatest firmness."
"I consider that it is up to those who are in charge in their administrations, as close as possible to the field, to collect the elements to justify the transmission of a report under Article 40 "of the Code of Criminal Procedure," he declared.
On May 2, "I made sure that both the office of the President of the Republic and the Prefect of Police were recipients of information. (…) It was up to them to take the sanctions and possibly inform the judicial authorities, "said Gerard Collomb.
-" known interlocutor "-
The police prefect Michel Delpuech, heard in in the afternoon by the same commission, challenged this point of view, recalling being "under the authority of the executive authorities."
After learning of the video on May 2, he contacted the ministry of the Interior, who replied that he was "already in contact" with the Presidency of the Republic, he reported, "it was established for me that the subject Benalla was treated by the hierarchical authority it also depended. "
Similarly, while Gérard Collomb contested knowing Alexandre Benalla, whose functions he did not know even if he had necessarily" crossed "during the election campaign of Emmanuel Macron, the prefect badured that this representative at the Elysee "was a known interlocutor". [19659002] This deputy chief of staff of the presidency played a large role in the security surrounding the head of state and was in regular contact with police officials. Benjamin Griveaux, however, claimed that Mr. Benalla was not "in charge of security" Emmanuel Macron.
The prefect of police on the other hand "badumed" to have authorized Alexander Benalla to carry a weapon, on request of the Elysee who has not put pressure in this direction, he said, but without the cabinet of the Minister of the Interior is notified.
Gérard Collomb is not finished with the explanations: it will be Tuesday before the Committee of the Laws of the Senate, which will also hear Wednesday Patrick Strzoda, and Alexis Kohler, the Secretary General of the Elysee, right arm of Emmanuel Macron, on Thursday.
– The hearing of Macron claimed –
"We have understood the strategy that is that of the Minister of the Interior: to save himself, even if to send the responsibility to the prefect of police and the chief of staff of the President of the Republic, as if those they themselves had no kind of hierarchical authority "above them, acted the spokesman of the PS, Boris Vallaud. On the left, former presidential candidates Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Benoît Hamon have each asked that Emmanuel Macron be auditioned.
Criticized for his public silence on this issue, the head of state has canceled his move Wednesday on the Tour de France
Alexandre Benalla, Vincent Crase and three senior police officers suspected of having transmitted to the adviser of the Elysee CCTV footage of the incident were indicted Sunday: the first two in particular for "violence in meetings" and the three police officers for "breach of professional secrecy" and "misappropriation of images from a videoprotection system."
"Basically, these events result from individual excesses unacceptable, condemnable, on background of unwholesome copinings "between the accused police officers and Alexandre Benalla, tried the prefect Delpuech in front of the deputies.
M. Benalla, meanwhile, denounced via his lawyers "the media and political use" of his disputed intervention of May 1, which he justified by the desire to "lend a hand" to the police face the protesters.
The former chargé de mission (whose dismissal was announced Friday by the Elysée), as well as Vincent Crase, has also been subject to a judicial review which prohibits him to perform a public service or a public service mission, to to hold a weapon and to get in touch with other protagonists of the case.
As for the two demonstrators abused on the videos in the heart of the scandal, they asked to be civil parties in the judicial investigation, Just like a union of police officers
"To prevent such a dysfunction recurring", the head of state asked the Secretary General of the Elysee to "lead the reorganization" of the services of the presidency. 19659002] Parallel to the investigation by In the meantime, an administrative investigation has been entrusted to the "police of the police", which should submit its report "at the end of this week", according to the president of the National Assembly François de Rugy.
The case has turned upside down the political agenda and paralyzed the Assembly: the review of the constitutional revision had to be suspended until the re-entry.
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