Photo: Police92, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons²⁷

Alexandre Benalla

Former Deputy Chief of Staff of the French President of the Republic, Coordinator of Security Services.¹

Born Sep 8, 1991.¹

About

The Benalla affair (French: affaire Benalla) or the Benalla affairs (affaires Benalla or affaires Macron-Benalla) is political and judicial cases involving Alexandre Benalla (French pronunciation: [alɛksɑ̃dʁ bɛnala]), who served as a security officer and deputy chief of staff to President of France Emmanuel Macron.

In the first affair, the newspaper Le Monde identified Benalla on 18 July 2018 in footage as the person who beat up a young protester during the 2018 May Day demonstrations in Paris while impersonating a police officer. Following the publication of the report, the Paris public prosecutor opened a preliminary investigation on 19 July concerning "violence, usurpation of the functions of a police officer and using signs reserved for public authorities". On 20 July, the Élysée announced that Benalla would be dismissed. On 22 July, Benalla was placed under formal investigation additionally for "concealment of a violation of professional secrecy" and "concealment of the misuse of images from a video surveillance system". An accomplice, Vincent Crase, was also placed under formal investigation, as well as three police officers for illegally transmitting video surveillance to Benalla. Parts of the French political class media questioned the Élysée's responsibility in the case for its apparent concealment of the case from the public prosecutor.

In the second affair, it was revealed by the French online journal Mediapart at the end of 2018 that Benalla was still in possession of a number of diplomatic passports several months after he was fired from the Élysée staff. These passports allowed him to meet several African leaders, including the Chad President, Idriss Déby.

In the third affair, also called 'The Russian Contracts' by the French press, it was revealed again by Mediapart that Benalla had contracted financial ties with two Russian oligarchs during his tenure in the Élysée, including Iskander Makhmudov, a businessman who is said to have ties with the Russian mafia.

From Wikipedia’s article on Alexandre Benalla, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.²

Companies

COMYA GroupFounder²⁶

Early life and education

2009 to 2013University of Rouen-Normandy law degree in French speaking countries; law^{3 4}
2013 to 2014University of Auvergne - Clermont I public security^{3 5}
2015National Institute for Advanced Security and Justice Studies^{3 6}
Date not recordedInstitut des hautes études de défense nationale³

On 1 May 2018, violence during May Day demonstrations led to significant damage and the arrests of 283 people with 109 taken into custody in Paris, in addition to several injuries. In the group of 1,200 "black bloc" protesters present that day a group of them destroyed a branch of McDonald's, making the police use tear gas grenades (GLIF4) on the Austerlitz bridge and the Hospital Boulevard. Protesters tried to escape the gas by getting into the Jardin des Plantes, a few of them were arrested by the police there. At the same time, firefighters opened the gate of the park to free them.

Alexandre Benalla (born 8 September 1991 in Évreux) was reportedly a Socialist Party (PS) activist in Eure, his home department, before offering his services as a bodyguard with the PS, which assigned him to the entourage of Martine Aubry from 2008 to 2012, during which time Aubry was First Secretary of the party. He was later assigned to protect François Hollande as well as, briefly, Arnaud Montebourg. A week into his assignment, he was dismissed after causing a car accident and wanting to flee from the scene. Following his dismissal, he protected artists before joining the security force of Emmanuel Macron, whom Benalla supported, during his presidential campaign. He also worked with PS deputy Pascale Boistard as an unpaid parliamentary assistant in 2012 and had access to some areas of the Palais Bourbon.

From 2010 to 2013, Benalla began his career as a reservist gendarme in Eure under then-platoon commander Sébastien Lecornu, who at the time was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and member of the cabinet of then-agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire. Both Lecornu and Le Maire were appointed as ministers in the government assembled after the election of Macron, with Lecornu serving as Secretary of State to the Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition and Le Maire becoming Minister of Economy and Finance. Benalla would later support Le Maire in his bid to lead the party in its 2014 leadership election. On 18 March 2016, Benalla was acquitted following a complaint of violence filed against him in Boulogne-Billancourt in August 2015 by a woman who stated that she was unable to work for more than 8 days as a result.

His name appeared numerous times in the 2017 Macron e-mail leaks, dubbed "MacronLeaks", having procured several non-lethal weapons and riot shields. At the request of the Élysée to aide him in his capacity as a security officer, Benalla was granted a carry license by the Paris police prefecture in October 2017. Karim Achoui, the founder of the Muslim Judicial Defense League with whom Benalla was close, made a previous request for a carry permit that was denied in 2013 in his capacity as a lawyer. During a March 2017 campaign event in Caen, he allegedly pushed a Public Sénat journalist 50 meters and seized his press badge, which granted close access to Macron and his supporters, without giving any explanation.

Benalla seemed to maintain a close relationship with Macron as he was the only member of his cabinet to join a skiing trip at the end of 2017, the only other invitees being his security detail.

From Wikipedia’s article on Alexandre Benalla (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Career

Occupation: consultant, business executive.^{14 15}

2017 to 2018Worked at Office of the President of the French Republic^{7 9}
2017 to 2018Deputy chief of staff^{12 13}
2009 to 2012Worked at Socialist Party^{7 8}
Date not recordedFounded COMYA Group¹⁰
Date not recordedFounded Institut Vidocq¹¹

Personal life

BornSep 8, 1991, Évreux^{16 17}
CitizenshipFrance¹⁸

Awards

Date not recordedMedal for voluntary military service^{19 20}
Date not recordedNational Defence Medal^{19 20}

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

1
WikidataAlexandre Benalla on Wikidata
2
WikipediaAlexandre Benalla on Wikipedia
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WikidataAlexandre Benalla: education, on Wikidata
4
Wikidataeducation, as reported
5
Wikidataeducation, as reported
6
Wikidataeducation, as reported
7
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Worked at Socialist Party, on Wikidata
8
WikidataWorked at Socialist Party, as reported
9
WikidataWorked at Office of the President of the French Republic, as reported
10
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Founded COMYA Group, on Wikidata
11
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Founded Institut Vidocq, on Wikidata
12
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Deputy chief of staff, on Wikidata
13
WikidataDeputy chief of staff, as reported
14
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: occupation, on Wikidata
15
Wikidataoccupation, as reported
16
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: place of birth, on Wikidata
17
Wikidataplace of birth, as reported
18
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: citizenship, on Wikidata
19
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: award, on Wikidata
20
Wikidataaward, as reported
21
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Official website, on Wikidata
22
WikidataAlexandre Benalla: X, on Wikidata
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WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Instagram, on Wikidata
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WikidataAlexandre Benalla: LinkedIn, on Wikidata
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WikidataAlexandre Benalla: Facebook, on Wikidata
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WikidataCOMYA Group, Founder
27
Wikimedia CommonsAlexandre Benalla photo by Police92, CC BY-SA 3.0