Scandal shakes France, threatens Elysee Palace
Friday 20/July/2018 - 04:57 PM
Ahmed Youssef
PARIS - France woke up from the dream of winning the World Cup to a political nightmare that is related to President Emmanuel Macron personally and may threaten his political future. It is just a video on the website of the famous newspaper Le Monde that caused a bubble. The video reveals one police officer cruelly beating a demonstrator on the ground during the Labor Day.
The problem is that the website revealed that the policeman is Alexandre Benalla, the bodyguard of President Macron. The most serious thing is that the policeman was on a vacation but was able to obtain a permit to attend the demonstration "only as an observer" to disperse the demonstrators. Several questions have been raised and a special investigation committee will be attempting to answer them. Is the man managing a parallel police at the Elysee Palace? Who gave him the permits at the interior ministry or at the intelligence agency and gave him his police helmet and the red badge around the arm?
The strangest thing is that some people inside the Elysee tried to keep quiet about it for two and a half months (Was the president informed of it?). The incident was not revealed until Le Monde published the news.
The strangest thing is that Alexandre Benalla is known to be fierce and was expelled from private escorts for ministers in the era of former French president Francois Hollande. Why was he hired by Macron and why was he given an office inside the presidential palace? Does the man have secrets about the president?
Recently, the parliament formed an investigative committee and there are requests to withdraw confidence. Moreover, the police itself revealed that they requested an investigation two months ago and were asked to "keep silent".
However, the Elysee Palace solved the problem in the last ditch by announcing the dismissal of Alexandre Benalla and revealing that 5 people inside the Paris Security Directorate were arrested and referred to the investigation committee after they had been proven to be engaged in the scandal.
We are still in the first chapters of this scandal, which will remain as a black spot in the history of Macron and may hinder his re-election. Moreover, it is greatly feared that it would be revealed in the next few hours other matters about the French presidency after it became clear that it tried to "conceal" the incident which is totally rejected according to the rules and tradition of democracy in Franc
