French senators grill Macron aide
Paris, France - French senators on Wednesday grilled President Emmanuel Macron’s disgraced former security aide Alexandre Benalla over an assault scandal that tarnished Emmanuel Macron’s reputation.
Alexandre Benalla made global headlines in July after Le Monde newspaper revealed him as the man filmed roughing up demonstrators at a May Day rally in Paris, apparently posing as a police officer with a police helmet and armband.
The 27 year old, who was a security official in the presidency and often seen by Macron’s side, said he was attending the demonstration as an observer and stepped in to help police bring the protests under control.
The footage of him hitting a young man and forcibly removing a young woman from the demonstration caused widespread shock, which was compounded when it was revealed that Macron had known about the incident and did not report Benalla to the authorities.
Macron, who had campaigned on a promise to clean up French politics, dismissed the scandal as a ‘storm in a teacup’.
But while his government survived two no-confidence votes, the affair was nonetheless seen as a blight on the record of the centrist and led to calls for greater checks on his powers.
Benalla, a former bouncer who has been charged with assault and impersonating a police officer, was head of Macron’s security team during the 2017 campaign and followed him to the Elysee Palace after his win.
Both during and after the campaign he was seen flanking Macron during public outings, but on Wednesday he denied that he had ever acted as his bodyguard - a job reserved for elite members of the gendarmerie which comes under the Interior Ministry.
“I was never a police officer nor the President’s bodyguard,” said Benalla, adding that his role was more like that of ‘a director or conductor’.
Members of the Senate committee investigating the scandal dubbed ‘Benallagate’ did not quiz him about the assault.
Their two and a half hours of questioning focused mainly on whether the presidency encroached on the role of the government, which is officially separate from the presidency, by giving him extraordinary powers.