Scandal takes the shine off France’s young president

A scandal is rocking France, said Manuela Honsig-erlenburg in Der Standard (Vienna), and it’s doing real damage to France’s young president, who came to office vowing to restore ethical standards and transparency to French politics. Three months ago, officials at the Élysée Palace were told that one of Emmanuel Macron’s trusted aides, a bodyguard called Alexandre Benalla, had been caught on film beating up protesters at a May Day rally while wearing a riot helmet. But Macron’s office failed to inform prosecutors about the incident, despite a law requiring public officials to alert authorities if laws are broken. Instead, Benalla was given a two-week suspension – a mere slap on the wrist. Prosecutors only learned about it when images of the violence finally hit the front pages last week; they immediately charged Benalla with “gang violence” and he’s been sacked, as he should have been at the outset. There have long been complaints about Macron’s high-handed behaviour, but now he has well and truly “lost his shine”. In a poll last week, 60% reported having an unfavourable opinion of him.

There’s so much wrong here one hardly knows where to begin, said Pascal Riché in L’obs (Paris). The sight of a police officer roughing up a protester is bad enough. But then we learn this man was merely impersonating one, apparently with the tacit consent of policemen standing by. Then we find he was a key member of Macron’s security team. Why was Macron even employing someone so “unstable”, let alone protecting him? What tops it all is the attempt to hide the wrongdoing – as if Watergate, Clinton-lewinsky, and any other number of political scandals aren’t sufficient warning of the perils of cover-ups. To the relief of supporters unnerved by his long silence, Macron has now taken full responsibility for the scandal, said Alain Auffray in Libération (Paris). “The buck stops with me,” he said in a speech to his party’s MPS. But his attempt to excuse himself by saying that he’d been reluctant to sacrifice a colleague “on the altar of popular emotion”, and his light-hearted attempt to downplay Benalla’s importance – he has never “held the nuclear codes”, joked Macron, and never “been my lover” – further infuriated his critics.

Whatever the failing of the president, we can be thankful that the constitutional checks of the French system worked as they should, said Le Monde (Paris). The press, however belatedly, revealed the cover-up at the Élysée; prosecutors initiated court proceedings; parliament is holding separate inquiries. This “summer scandal” will blow over, said Jean-francis Pécresse in Les Echos (Paris). Macron goofed – no question – but the incident doesn’t signify the “bankruptcy of the system”, as far-left enemies like Jean-luc Mélenchon would have us believe. All that the hysteria confirms is the tendency of the French to “carp” endlessly about their leaders. The slightest misstep is always seen as a “symptom of deeper evil”. But rather than get distracted by this misstep, we should be focusing on Macron’s project of modernising the economy. Although disappointingly incomplete, it is going in the right direction. Let’s hope this business doesn’t blow him off course.