Alexandre Benalla, February 26, 2019 at the exit of the Health prison in Paris. – JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP
Emmanuel Macron’s former collaborator, Alexandre Benalla, will be tried from September 13 to October 1 for violence committed during the demonstration on May 1, 2018 and the fraudulent use of diplomatic passports, announced the Paris Criminal Court, this Tuesday.
The court ordered, at a procedural hearing, the joinder of the two cases for the good administration of justice. The revelations of the newspaper The world in July 2018 showing Alexandre Benalla, then in charge of mission at the Elysee Palace, wearing a visor helmet of the police hitting a protester on the Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris, had caused a political scandal.
Three more people sent back for the May 1 violence
In mid-April, the investigating judge, responsible for investigating the case of the violence of May 1, 2018 in the capital, had decided to send four people to trial, including Alexandre Benalla. The order of referral to the criminal court, almost in accordance with the requisitions of the Paris prosecutor’s office, returns the former mission manager, reconverted in the private sector, for “willful violence”, “untitled interference in the exercise of a function public ”or even“ carrying a weapon ”or“ wearing a public badge ”not authorized.
In mid-January, that Alexandre Benalla had been sent back to correctional in the case of diplomatic and service passports for “forgery” and “use of forgery” and “public use and without the right of documents proving a professional quality”.