Alexandre Benalla will be fixed on his fate this Friday afternoon. The former close collaborator of Emmanuel Macron, now 30 years old and reconverted in the private sector, appeared in September for twelve offenses, including “violence in meetings” and “interference in the function of police officer” during the demonstration of the Labor Day 2018 in the capital.
The prosecution had requested eighteen months suspended imprisonment against him and suspended sentences of two to twelve months against three other defendants. The Paris court will render its decision during the day.
Benalla filmed brutalizing a woman and a man
Prolix at the bar, Alexandre Benalla assured to have been “legal, loyal, honest” and contested any “voluntary violence”, claiming to have wanted to “challenge” “police attackers”. The project manager had been identified by the newspaper The world on July 18, 2018 on a video in which he appeared, with a police helmet, brutalizing a woman and a man, place de la Contrescarpe in Paris, at the end of a day of May 1st enamelled with violence.
A member of the presidential cabinet, the 26-year-old young man was integrated into the police force that day as a simple observer. The article had triggered a political earthquake whose aftershocks had shaken the top of the state for many months, from revelations from the press to parliamentary committees. Since then targeted by a series of judicial investigations, Alexandre Benalla faced court for three weeks, with his friend and former employee of the presidential party (LREM) Vincent Crase as well as two police officers.
“Illegitimate violence”
Warning against a case “already judged by the court of opinion”, the prosecutors called to return to the “facts”. They maintained at the hearing that Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase had “acted with police officers, like police officers and sometimes in place of the police”, while their intervention was “not necessary”. The magistrates considered that they had committed “illegitimate violence” on a total of four people in the Latin Quarter.
They demanded a one-year suspended prison sentence against Vincent Crase, a 48-year-old former reservist gendarme, also prosecuted for illegally carrying a weapon that day.
Fraudulent use of diplomatic passports
In this file with drawers, Alexandre Benalla is also implicated for having carried a pistol without authorization in 2017 in Poitiers, as well as for having used, after his dismissal, two diplomatic passports during eleven trips and for producing a false document in order to ” obtain a service passport.
The prosecution also asked for his conviction for these facts, as well as additional penalties of 500 euros fine, a ban from all public service for five years and from carrying a weapon for ten years – fifteen years for Vincent Crase.
Alexandre Benalla “demonized”
Describing a “media tidal wave”, a “cataclysm” for a man who has been “demonized”, the defense of the former member of Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet pleaded for release for all offenses, to the exception of the fraudulent use – recognized – of diplomatic passports.
His lawyers argued that he and Vincent Crase had “helped to arrest” perpetrators of a “flagrant” offense, as the law allows in certain circumstances, arguing that their actions were “proportionate”. Two former officials of the Paris police prefecture were tried with them for having transmitted CCTV images to Alexandre Benalla. The prosecution requested two and four months suspended imprisonment against them; their lawyers pleaded an “error of discernment” and released her.