Alexandre Benalla definitively condemned for the violence of May 1, 2018 against demonstrators

The former Elysée mission manager saw his three-year prison sentence, including one year, confirmed by the Court of Cassation on Wednesday.

The Court of Cassation rejected, Wednesday June 26, the appeal filed by the former Elysée mission manager Alexandre Benalla, making his conviction definitive in the case of the violence of May 1, 2018. Six years after this scandal which had shaken Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, the decision of the highest court of the judiciary confirms his conviction on appeal to three years in prison, of which one year is closed.

Alexandre Benalla, 32, will not go to prison, however, because the court of appeal adjusted the fixed part of his sentence. It is a sentence enforcement judge who will determine the conditions, for example under an electronic bracelet. The man who now lives in Switzerland and works in the private sector remains the target of three investigations in France, one of which concerns his role in signing contracts with Russian oligarchs while he was stationed at the Elysée.

The images of Alexandre Benalla at Place de la Contrescarpe, in Paris, sparked a political storm in the summer of 2018 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 which they did not attend. only as observers.

Alexandre Benalla has always maintained that he wanted, by “citizen reflex”, “to interpellate” of the “aggressors” of police officers during this demonstration punctuated by incidents, speaking of “failed technical gestures”. The court of appeal found that he was guilty of “willful violence in a meeting” and “interference in the function of a police officer”.

As in the first instance, the former mission manager was also sanctioned for having fraudulently used his diplomatic passports after his dismissal, as well as for having produced a false document to obtain a service passport and for having illegally carried a weapon. in 2017.