Macron’s fired former guard defends himself at French Senate inquiry
Security officer grilled over allegations of abuse of power at presidential palace
French President Emmanuel Macron’s closest security officer, fired after video showed him beating May Day protesters, defended himself before a Senate inquiry on Wednesday, saying he was neither a police officer nor a genuine bodyguard.
Alexandre Benalla, whose case erupted into a political scandal, with accusations of unchecked abuses of power in the presidential palace, was questioned for more than two hours about the nature of his job as Macron’s security shadow.
Speaking under oath, the former logistics aide at the Elysee was not questioned about the May Day beatings in Paris, but rather his very rapid ascent within Macron’s inner circle and how he had gained the right to carry a firearm.
“I was not Macron’s bodyguard and never was … I had a job of ensuring general organisation, of security in general,” said the 27-year-old, who has been accused of abusing his office and exercising powers that he should never have been granted.
Complaining of what he described as a media frenzy around him, Benalla calmly answered questions about how he came to carry a Glock 43 pistol and to what extent his logistics job overlapped with the self-attributed role of bodyguard.
He said much of his role had involved liaising between Macron’s political office and the official security body charged with protecting the president, known as GSPR and made up of top-level gendarmes and senior police officers.