Two young people file lawsuit against Benalla for violence, new video revealed

International

A new video was revealed by our colleagues from Mediapart and Franceinfo in which an individual resembling "strongly" to Alexandre Benalla dragged a protester on the floor of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. A scene that would have taken place on May 1st. However, in the columns of the JDD, the person concerned has only been an observer in this area.

New investigation

In parallel, the French justice announced Monday the opening of a new investigation for other violence committed on May 1 in Paris, a few hours before the clashes for which the former collaborator of President Emmanuel Macron has already been indicted. The new investigation was opened by the Paris prosecutor's office after the complaints against X of two young people aged 23 and 24 claiming to have been victims of a muscular arrest in a park in the center of Paris where the former collaborator of the presidency and Vincent Crase, employee of the LREM presidential party.

The violence was reported on May 1 in the capital, but a few hours before the violence for which Benalla was charged after revelations in the press that triggered the most a serious political crisis suffered by the president since his election last year

In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche, Mr Benalla refuted any "intervention" on his part during the events covered by the new investigation. "I was behind the police as an observer, you can see it clearly, I have no helmet, no armband, no radio," he said.

This new investigation was opened for "deliberate violence in meetings by a person holding public authority", "arbitrary interference with personal liberty", "usurpation of signs reserved to the public authority", "interference in the performance of a public function", " intentional degradation of a good ", in this case a video, and" fraudulent introduction into a personal data processing system "

According to the lawyer of the two plaintiffs, Me Grégory Saint-Michel, Vincent Crase , Alexandre Benalla and the policeman who accompanied them that day are identifiable on the video broadcast by Libération.

The lawyer says that his customers, who tried to leave a Parisian park on the sidelines of May Day demonstrations, have received conflicting indications. Seeing that the young woman was filming with her phone, one of the members of the trio belted her and put her hands against a tree, told the lawyer.

One of the three members of the group then took her phone and erased the video in question, which she managed to recover thanks to special software, he added.

"The argument that they (Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase, ed) have felt legitimate to coming to support the maintenance of order against violent protesters does not hold here.There is a video that shows the opposite, "said Grégory Saint-Michel.

For the violence for which Mr. Benalla has charged, a judicial inquiry was opened. Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase, who accompanied the police as "observers", are charged in particular for "violence in meetings."

M. Benalla justified his actions by saying he wanted to lend a hand to the police in the face of agitated protesters.