Privileges and protection of the "bodyguard" of Macron: the cyclone in France

The most serious political crisis that Emmanuel Macron has known since May 2017 has become President of the Republic. One of his closest neighbors to the Elysee, Alexandre Benalla, 26, was placed in police custody yesterday and fired after beating a protester on May 1, claiming to be a policeman. But why did it take nearly three months to take serious action?

This seems the most serious: the government and the Elysee knew the facts on May 2 and kept them silent before the judicial authority and the French, while the video of the pbadage circulated during hours on the internet. Benalla would still be in his place today, in the inner circle of the President and his wife Brigitte, three days ago Le Monde did not recognize him as the author of the violence.

Why was Benalla protected? The revelations about his privileges put Macron in serious difficulty, which refuses to express itself on the subject while the deputies request a commission of investigation and which the Minister of the Interior Grard Collomb calls to explain it next Tuesday in the Senate.

The role of Benalla in the Petit Elysée Transparent : head of a security mission to the chief of staff, François-Xavier Lauch, May 1, acts as a (violent) policeman without title. Presidential spokesman Bruno Roger-Petit said the most serious sanction had been taken against Benalla in recent months, two weeks of suspension. But yesterday for the same facts Benalla was arrested, and not on the report of the Elysee but of The World .

After the May 1st violence, Alexandre Benalla nevertheless obtained from the Élysée a function apartment on the elegant Branly wharf, guarding the car with chauffeur, siren and police symbols. (usurped), the rank of lieutenant colonel of reservists of the gendarmerie (brilliant career for a young person of 26 years) and remained with the president on the most important occasions: from the entrance of Simone Veil to the Pantheon during the parade July 14, return to Paris of the world champions of football. with Mbapp and Griezmann on the coach that went through the Champs-Élysées.

Benalla accompanies the president by bike in summer in Le Touquet and in winter he skis with the Macron in La Mongie, although others are officially responsible for the protection of the president. The suspect that the Elysee was formed by a parallel group of very few men was used to doing the service – among them also a companion from Benalla who participated in the beating, Vincent Crash – who have the full trust of the head of state.

Called Rambo for the harshness of the interventions and the tendency to lose patience, Benalla obtained from the three police officers the recordings of the surveillance cameras, a few hours after the revelations of Le Monde, ] and for these events occurred after being fired, says Premier Philippe. Wauquiez (right) and Le Pen claim that Macron breaks his silence while Mlenchon (radical left) speaks of crisis at the top of the state and evokes the resignation of Minister Collomb