There is no longer any recourse possible. The Court of Cassation on Wednesday rejected the appeal filed by the former Elysée mission manager Alexandre Benalla, making definitive his sentence to one year in prison in the case of the violence of May 1, 2018.
Six years after this scandal which shook Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, the decision of the highest judicial court confirms the conviction on appeal of Alexandre Benalla to three years in prison including one year closed, pronounced on September 29, 2023 by the Paris Court of Appeal.
Alexandre Benalla, 32, will not go to prison: the court of appeal had in fact adjusted the fixed part of his sentence. It is a sentence enforcement judge (JAP) who will determine the conditions (for example under an electronic bracelet).
Violence against several people in the Latin Quarter
The images of Alexandre Benalla at Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris on May 1, 2018 had triggered a political storm in July of the same year, when the daily The world had identified, under a police helmet, this close friend of Emmanuel Macron.
In September 2023, the Paris Court of Appeal convicted Alexandre Benalla, as well as Vincent Crase, a former gendarmerie reservist, for violence against several people in the Latin Quarter, on the sidelines of the Parisian demonstration to which they did not attend. attended only as observers. Vincent Crase’s cassation appeal was also rejected.
As in the first instance, the former mission officer was also sanctioned for having fraudulently used his diplomatic passports after his dismissal, forged a false document to obtain a service passport and illegally carried a weapon in 2017.
From the outset, Alexandre Benalla has maintained that he wanted, as a “citizen reflex”, to “arrest” “attackers” of police officers during a demonstration punctuated by incidents, speaking of “failed technical gestures”. The court of appeal found on the contrary, like the court, that he was guilty of willful violence in a meeting and of interference with the function of a police officer.
Three investigations remain open against Benalla
Anyone who lives today in Switzerland and works in the private sector remains the target of three investigations in France. One concerns his role in signing contracts with Russian oligarchs while he was stationed at the Elysée.
A judicial investigation, opened in February 2019 for “obstruction of the manifestation of the truth”, aims to determine whether he concealed evidence, in particular two safes.
Finally, a third investigation, launched in April 2019, concerns suspicions of “false testimony” by Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase before the Senate commission of inquiry.