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Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is increasingly embarrassed after a photo of his former assistant Alexander Benalla posed for his selfie.
Benalla hit the headlines after Mediapart, the investigative site, this week published a photo he pointed a pistol at a restaurant waiter during the 2017 presidential campaign. At the time, Benalla was only allowed to carry the weapon inside Macron's headquarters in La République en Marche. Police investigate the incident.
Mediapart
(@Mediapart)In the middle of the presidential elections, Benalla draws his weapon for a selfie https://t.co/Y5BdHnE4tc
The presidential security assistant was already under investigation after he was filmed beating May Day protesters wearing a police armband. He was fired from his job after the revelation of the attack in July. He denied being violent.
The photo selfie in the restaurant was taken at the end of April 2017 after Macron organized a rally in Poitiers in the run-up to the second round presidential election between Macron and Marine Le Pen of the National Front.
In the photo, Benalla is seen pointing his Glock pistol at the neck of an anonymous restaurant employee of Les Archives restaurant in Poitiers. Two other men stand behind her.
Guillaume Duru, who was the manager of the restaurant at the time, said he was not present when the photo was taken, but was aware of it and advised the woman to be quiet.
"The waitress called me during the evening and told me what had happened," Duru told The New Republic newspaper. "She talked about a selfie. I thought it was very dangerous for the person involved, for Benalla, and that he could lose his job for it. I found it a bit pathetic that one of Macron's bodyguards did a selfie with a waitress. I told him to keep it for her.
Benalla, 27, had asked for permission to carry a firearm during the election campaign, but her application was denied. it was finally approved in October 2017, five months after the elections.
During his interrogation, as part of a parliamentary inquiry into his behavior, Benalla told senators that he owned three Glock guns and a Remington gun. In an interview with Le Monde, he insisted that he had not carried a firearm outside the party headquarters during the presidential campaign.
Benalla's lawyer, Laurent-Franck Liénard, told AFP that the story of the selfies had been undermined to damage his client's reputation. "Leave him alone," Liénard said.
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