An investigation over several months by Mediapart, based on around ten independent sources and many new documents, including audio tapes, casts fresh light on the secret background to the so-called Macron-Benalla affair involving the French president's disgraced former security aide Alexandre Benalla. Benalla was sacked by the Élysée in July 2018 when news and video footage emerged of him using violence against protestors on May 1st that year.
Mediapart's investigation, which started in August 2018, reveals that:
- Ex-Élysée security aide Alexandre Benalla and the former head of the security for the ruling La République en Marche party, Vincent Crase, both placed under formal investigation over violence committed against protestors on May 1st 2018, met in person on July 26th 2018, in Paris, in clear breach of a judicial order banning any contact between them.
- Contrary to what he swore on oath in hearings before the French Senate, Alexandre Benalla was personally involved, including in the financial arrangements, even when he was working at the Élysée, with a security contract with a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, an oligarch who is also suspected of links with the mafia. Benalla later received money linked to this contract.
- Claiming he has the personal support of the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, with text messages to support his claims, Benalla kept strong links with the Élysée for several months after he was placed under formal investigation.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
1. Impunity in the shadows of the Élysée
The scene is Paris on the early afternoon of July 26th 2018. It takes place four days after Alexandre Benalla was placed under formal investigation for, in particular, “assault” in connection with the May 1st affair. Dressed in police uniform, the president's security aide was filmed as he assaulted opponents to Macron's policies, as Le Monde revealed on July 18th.
Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase, who had also been placed under formal investigation over the May Day protests affair, met together. They had no right to do so, under the terms of the judicial control orders which were made against them when they were placed under investigation. That does not seem to worry Alexandre Benalla who roams across all of Paris proudly showing his communications with Emmanuel Macron and his diplomatic passports, visiting various political or business establishments; and who, at the same time, has attracted the discreet attentions of the intelligence services.
That meeting between the two men on July 26th was recorded. Mediapart has been able to authenticate the recording. In it Alexandre Benalla seems to regard the acts he is accused of with a baffling lack of concern, so sure is he of the support of the head of state, as shown in this exchange with Vincent Crase.
Alexandre Benalla, talking light-heartedly: “Crazy thing, yesterday evening the 'boss' [editor's note, as Benalla calls Emmanuel Macron] sent me a message, he says to me, 'You'll eat them alive. You're stronger than them, that's why I had you beside me. I'm with Isma [editor's note, the president's special advisor, Ismaël Emelien] etc, we're waiting for Le Monde, whatshisname, etc...”
Vincent Crase: “So the 'boss' is supporting us?”
Vincent Benalla: “Ah, well, he's doing more than supporting us … He's like a madman ...And he said just like that, he said, he told me 'You're going to eat them alive. You're stronger than them.' Still, it's fantastic.”
Here is the extract:
Contacted by Mediapart, the Élysée denied the existence of this text message.
At that time, however, the presidency's support - and particularly that of Emmanuel Macron – for Benalla was common knowledge. Two days before the banned meeting between Benalla and Crase, the president had given a passionate speech at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine in Paris where rather than attack his former aide, Emmanuel Macron pointed the finger at the work of the press, Parliament and the justice system. He then ended his speech with the now well-known words: “Let them come and get me!”
The day before the secret meeting between the two men, Alexandre Benalla gave an interview to Le Monde in which he appeared to have been helped by the high priestess of the paparazzi, Mimi Marchand. She is a close confidant of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron and for several years she has controlled the stories and photos of them that have appeared in celebrity magazines and elsewhere.
On July 26th Alexandre Benalla was not in the least concerned by the turbulence his actions had caused in the highest echelons of the Élysée and to public opinion. On the contrary, he was crowing with his friend Vincent Crase, who had also worked with him at the Élysée before taking over joint responsibility for security issues at the LREM party, but who seemed much less light-hearted about events.
Alexandre Benalla: “It was like a film, that episode, wasn't it, eh?”
Vincent Crase: “Ah, well, it's a nightmare yes! A horror film.”
Benalla: “It's good experience. … At 26, if you like, there aren't many who experience … who cause two Parliamentary commissions of inquiry, who block the working of the Parliament...”
Crase: “That amuses you?”
Here is the extract:
Enlargement : Illustration 4
At that time the judicial affair involving the violence on May 1st was in full swing. A few days before the meeting, a curious episode occurred which had taken everyone by surprise: the police, when trying to search Benalla's flat at Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, found that the former presidential aide's secure cabinet had disappeared. “It must have been taken away by some person but it wasn't me who did that,” Alexandre Benalla said when questioned, though he refused to say who this “person” was.
In fact the searches - and the discoveries that sometimes occurred as a result - seemed to particularly worry Vincent Crase during his secret meeting with Benalla on July 26th.
Vincent Crase: “But they're going to search En Marche! [editor's note, the ruling party LREM where he was jointly responsible for security]”
Alexandre Benalla: “Again?”
Crase: “Apparently, there's a search, yeah. Well, all my things are there.”
Benalla: “Currently?”
The two men then discuss going to discreetly clear up in the LREM offices. “I'd go there tonight but the problem is that there are some cops in front....” says Vincent Crase.
Here is this exchange in full:
Clearly keen to hear confidential information on the investigations underway, Alexandre Benalla likes to give the impression of always being one step ahead, sure of his fate and how to control it when everything is out of control. According to the secret recording, Benalla told his friend that officers from the financial crimes unit in Paris had started a discreet investigation into a private security firm of which Crase was the beneficiary.
This company, called Mars – a reference to 'Jupiter', one of the nicknames given to Emmanuel Macron – is a Pandora's Box. And a time bomb for those involved.
Meanwhile, Benalla seems totally calm in the recording. There was a reason for that. He said he had the whole of the Élysée behind him. When Crase asks him who in concrete terms the support was from, Benalla comes straight back with his response: “From the president, Madame [editor's note, Brigitte Macron], Ismaël [editor's note, special advisor Ismaël Emelien] who is advising me on the media.”
Here is the extract of that exchange:
When contacted for a comment, Ismaël Emelien did not respond. The Élysée meanwhile denied that the advisor had guided Alexandre Benalla in his public relations strategy.
The problem with this stance is that the latest developments in the judicial investigation into the events of May 1st now place Macron's special advisor Ismaël Emelien – whom some like to portray as “the president's brain” – in great difficulty.
The police investigations, in particular an examination of phone records and signals, suggest that on the night of July 18th to 19th 2018 Benalla could have handed Ismaël Emelien a CD of images illegally obtained from police headquarters in Paris. These images were published in the following hours on LREM party social media accounts in defence of Benalla.
But Ismaël Emelien is not Benalla's only important contact at the Élysée. According to Mediapart's investigation, for a long period after the start of judicial setbacks, Macron's former security aide continued to meet with a man called Ludovic Chaker, the policy aide to the president's personal military chief of staff at the Élysée. This former soldier from the 44th Infantry Regiment likes to cultivate a reputation as a man who is close to the intelligence services.
Enlargement : Illustration 7
When confronted with information gathered by Mediapart, Ludovic Chaker admitted during a telephone interview to have seen Alexandre Benalla “on several occasions, for a coffee” after the latter was removed from the Élysée. Why? “To make sure he was well and to speak about the affair, in an informal way,” he said.
Chaker also came across Benalla at a dinner on November 13th 2018 in a restaurant in the Arts et Métiers district of Paris. On that evening the ten or so diners around the table were surprised at around midnight to see Benalla turn up with the Franco-Israeli businessman Philippe Hababou Solomon. Alexandre Benalla had greeted Ludovic Chaker and Nicolas Bays – a former Socialist Party MP who supported Emmanuel Macron during the campaign – before sitting down twenty minutes or so over a whisky.
Bays confirms: “He came by because Chaker and I had sent him a selfie. We often caught up with his news, at that time he had just left the Élysée for his violence at Place de la Contrescarpe [editor's note, the square where the events of May 1st 2018 had occurred]. Alexandre told me: 'Nicolas, you'll see, I'm going to come back, I'll get them all, I'll put up a list [of candidates] for the European [elections], I'll speak about security, immigration, they can't come and get me on those issues.' I told him that he was being rash, he couldn't do that to the boss.”
Ludovic Chaker says that he was “embarrassed” by Benalla's sudden entrance and says that it was”not premeditated at all”. He continued: “It was a dinner related to art and culture which my wife was taking part in and I accompanied her, I was there in a completely private capacity. Everyone found that amusing, I'm not going to say he arrived like a fly in the soup, but still it was a bit strange. He stayed to have drink.”
Chaker says he has seen Benalla “once” more since then.
2 Panic over a Russian contract
It is the issue that worries Benalla and Crase more than the others – the affair of the Russian contract.
As Mediapart revealed last December, the Russian oligarch Iskander Makhmudov signed a security contract with Vincent Crase's company Mars, at a time when Crase was still in charge of security at LREM and while Benalla was still working at the Élysée. This contract, renewable quarterly, involved the protection of the businessman's properties in France and of his family in Monaco.
Close to Russian president Vladimir Putin and at the head of an industrial empire, Iskander Makhmudov is also suspected by several European judges of links with one of the worst criminal gangs in Moscow. Alexandre Benalla was not unaware of the oligarch's profile and also knew that the French justice system was interested in him. For an advisor at the Élysée to use his status to do business with a billionaire close to the Putin government is something that, at the very least, raises questions. This is especially true given that at the time Benalla was cleared for some “defence secrets” and was aware of what was going on in the heart of the French presidency.
Alexandre Benalla has said and repeated, including on oath before the Senate's commission of inquiry on January 21st 2019, that he “never ...contributed to” the “negotiation” or the “conclusion” of this Russia deal.
But information collected by Mediapart show that, on the contrary, Alexandre Benalla was personally involved in this contract, including in its financial arrangements.
Though back in December last year Benalla had told Mediapart that there was “no link between Makhmudov and me”, the president's former security aide met the oligarch's representative in France, Jean-Louis Hagenauer, on several occasions. The latter told Mediapart that Vincent Crase had been designated by Alexandre Benalla to implement the contract. Hagenauer and Benalla continued to see each other. Proof of this is a photo taken at the end of August 2018 (see below) in the château owned by businessman Vincent Miclet in the Périgord area of south-west France.
Enlargement : Illustration 8
The discussions over the contract had in fact started much earlier, in the winter of 2017. They gathered pace in June 2018 in the presence of Alexandre Benalla though he was still working at the Élysée. The talks with people from Velours – the security company to whom Mars had sub-contracted the work under the contract and who are, incidentally, Benalla's former employers – were held a short distance from the Élysée at Café Damas, Benalla's favoured spot, in the most watched over area of Paris.
On June 28th 2018 a first payment of 294,000 euros arrived into Mars's bank account. A little more than half, 172,200 euros, was then transferred into two accounts belonging to the service provider Velours, who were paying seven people with a military background for this contract.
But the affair involving the violence on May Day – which only became public in July – changed the situation. On July 26th, when Alexandre Benalla and Vincent Crase met, there was panic. Just the day before the bank Société Générale, where Mars had its account, called on Crase to produce the contract that justified the arrival of 300,000 euros from an account in Monaco.
Six days earlier – and just 48 hours after Le Monde had revealed details about the May 1st violence - Velours had backed out of the contract. The security firm did not know that Benalla and Crase were involved in such a high-level affair. The reputational risk for them was enormous. Velours asked for the arrangements to be changed quickly.
Benalla was furious with his old friends there. “Velours ... they're going to fuck themselves up, I don't give a shit,” he says in the recording. Vincent Crase adds: “I don't much like rats who leave the ship.”
The first period of the quarterly contract with Velours was due to end in September. “Above all we must make sure the client isn't affected … and must make sure we continue the thing. Afterwards the, [security] service, we'll do it with someone else,” says Crase.
After being in the spotlight because of the May 1st affair, Benalla was worried about the repercussions for Mars and the interest that the justice system could show in the company. He wanted to change things.
“We have to cut the branch,” says Macron's former security aide on the tape. “We have to change the set up, we have to do what we'd planned to do and and transfer … You have to disappear from the company,” he tells Crase. “...So we need to find a guy … in the end I've got an idea in mind, but we must put the company in another guy's name … Because if not … they're going to carry out a preventive seizure and they'll put a stop to the company...” he adds.
Listen to the extract of that exchange here.
The former security chief at LREM, Vincent Crase, is worried. “It's up in flames ...we have to try and get out of it,” he says to Benalla. He worries about leaks to the media. Above all he is worried about his own future financially after being sacked by the party. Benalla tries to reassure him, and says his old colleague will get unemployment benefit “for a year and a half” and “before doing that we'll get the money out of the company and we'll sort it out, we'll go to Morocco or Senegal and we'll have a ball,” he says, laughing, adding: “No but...we'll get there.”
Listen to the extract of that exchange here.
The two friends are keen to act quickly, before the following evening. Vincent Crase has a meeting the same day at Société Générale, and Alexandre Benalla advised him to not hand the contract to the bank.
The new company documents for Mars, with a new manager, were almost finalised. But in the end they chose another option. “We must change the company,” says Benalla. A discreet company called 'France Close Protection' was set up on October 16th 2018. It is managed by Yoann Petit, a former soldier who worked on the contract for Velours, and it is lodged in the same registration centre as Mars.
Petit is also close to Benalla: he was the only one to have accompanied Macron's former aide in the Senate corridors during his first questioning before the commission of inquiry in September last year. The new company, France Close Protection, does not have its account at Société Générale and uses an online bank instead. In November last year Alexandre Benalla was listed as an employee of the company. He received 12,474 euros , while he had been receiving unemployment benefits of between 3,097 euros and 3,871 a month since his departure from the Élysée.
Meanwhile Benalla told his friend Vincent Crase: “You make an appearance in something, you're close to power, you have a company that provides you bank transfers from that guy [editor's note, Iskander Makhmudov] and they're going to do business with us, it could be ten times worse than it is.”
Alexandre Benalla, Vincent Crase, Iskander Makhmudov and the managers at Velours were all contacted by Mediapart but despite repeated requests none of them chose to make a comment.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter