More than three years after the Benalla affair, the Paris tribunal de grande instance condemned the former official in charge of the Elysée to three years in prison, one of which is closed, a fine of 500 euros and a five-year ban on practicing in the public service, in particular for “willful violence in a meeting”, “carrying a weapon prohibited” and “use of diplomatic passports” in the case of the violence of May 1, 2018.
The prosecution had required 18 months suspended imprisonment against Alexandre Benalla, now 30 years old. Throughout the trial, he defended his innocence on almost all of the facts. “The court judges that only a mixed sentence is likely to mark the gravity of the facts”, explained the president of the tribunal, Isabelle Prévost-Desprez, who underlines her “indifference to criminal law”.
For his part, the former employee of La République en Marche, Vincent Crase, was sentenced to two years’ suspended imprisonment, a fine of 500 euros, the ban on carrying a weapon for ten years and confiscation. of those which hold for in particular “violence in assembly”, “prohibited carrying of weapons” and “deletion of data” in the case of the violence of May 1, 2018 in Paris.
Finally, two police officers from the Paris Police Prefecture, Maxence Creusat and Laurent Simonin, tried for having transmitted CCTV images to Alexandre Benalla, were respectively sentenced to a 500-euro fine and a three-month suspended prison sentence, without registration for both in the criminal record.
Alexandre Benalla had been identified by the newspaper The world on July 18, 2018, on a video where he appeared with a helmet of the police, brutalizing a woman and a man, Place de la Contrescarpe in Paris, at the end of a day of demonstration enamelled with violence. Whoever was at the age of 26 at the heart of the security system surrounding the President of the Republic was to have only an observer role that day. Suspended for 15 days, he still had an office at the “Castle”, revealed the daily.
The article had triggered a political earthquake whose aftershocks had shaken the power of Emmanuel Macron for many months, at the rate of revelations in the press and hearings of officials before parliamentary committees. Since then targeted by six judicial investigations, one of which was dismissed, Alexandre Benalla faced court for the first time for three weeks, with his friend and ex-employee LREM Vincent Crase, as well as two police officers.
In addition to this trial, three other legal proceedings concerning him are still ongoing. One concerns suspicion of “corruption” in a contract between the company of Vincent Crase, Mars, and a sulphurous Russian oligarch. A second concerns the mysterious safe that he owned at his home. Finally, the third aims suspicion of “false testimony” before the Senate commission of inquiry.