While Alexandre Benalla’s visiting card gave him the title of “Deputy to the cabinet chief” of the French presidency, on his work contract, obtained by Mediapart, his professional duties are summed up in the three words “Chargé de mission”, which means simply ‘mission leader’, an ambiguous description also shared by others behind the doors of the Élysée Palace.
For a period of more than year, that title ensured total discretion around his activities, even allowing him to escape the interest of the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Office, the HATVP, a watchdog body created in 2013 with powers to control the probity of politicians and their senior civilian staff.
While the appointment of those employed as “advisors” to the president of France, and who number about 40, is the subject of an announcement, in the form of a decree, in France’s official public registry gazette, the Journal officiel, those described as “mission leaders” can be employed by the president’s inner cabinet – at the heart of political power – without their presence ever being made public. On the very same basis, “mission leaders” are also employed within France’s ministries.
This was already the case under the previous presidencies of Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-2012) and his successor François Hollande (2012-2017), but the scandal that has erupted around Alexandre Benalla has brought the ambiguous nature of such a title to the fore and has underlined the urgent need for those who are given it to be made accountable before the public.
At present, the identity and precise role of “mission leaders” within the presidential office, the Élysée Palace, are only revealed if and when the head of state so desires, allowing for the inherent dangers that secretive and even wayward activity can proceed unchecked.
Questioned this week by the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Benalla affair, President Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet chief, Patrick Strzoda, told the panel of Members of Parliament (MPs) that “about ten” people continue to work within the Élysée as “mission leaders” following Benalla’s dismissal last Friday. None appear in the official organisation chart of the presidential office and Strzoda gave no information about their identities or activities.
However, Mediapart can reveal the details of the fixed-term work contracts of five of these current mission leaders, obtained, along with that of Benalla, through an application last December to the French Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (the CADA). The information received did not include the remunerations of these staff, which was withheld on the basis of their right to personal privacy.
In theory, the information passed on by the Élysée to the CADA and transmitted to Mediapart concerned all of those employed as mission leaders – officially a total of six (when including Benalla) in December 2017. Four were hired in June 2017, shortly after Emmanuel Macron was elected president, and two others were hired last September.
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But the situation is confused by the information the Élysée gave in July last year to centre-right MP Philippe Vigier, a rapporteur of the French parliament’s finance commission when it was preparing its annual report on the budget of the Élysée Palace. Then, the presidency reported that it employed a total of eight "mission leaders".
Among the five mission leaders (not including Benalla) whose details were given to Mediapart, one was already publicly known. This is Tristan Bromet, who the Élysée had openly spoken of as having been hired to act as head of the office of Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte in managing her official functions.
But others, like Sophie Walon, were unknown figures. In a brief phone conversation with Mediapart this week, Walton’s secretary said her activities revolved around the preparation of official “speeches” and for “decorations” – ceremonies for honours awards.
The three others include Vincent Caure, who has presented himself on social media as “mission leader for the political advisor” to the president. According to interior minister Gérard Collomb, testifying this week before the commission of enquiry into the Benalla scandal, it was Caure who informed the minister, on May 2nd, of the existence of video footage taken the previous day showing Benalla beating up a demonstrator on the place de la Contrescarpe in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Interestingly, Collomb told the panel of MPs that Caure was “responsible for social media” communications, which until now has never been announced.
Another is Raphaël Coulhon, who similarly presented himself on social media, this time on the professional networking site LinkedIn, declaring to be a “mission leader” for the French presidency but without revealing his activities. During the presidential elections, he served as deputy treasurer for Macron’s campaign movement En Marche ! (now the ruling LREM party).
Lastly, there was also Hugo Vergès, an unknown figure who Mediapart understands may be involved with the Élysée’s diplomatic policymaking unit.
Contacted by Mediapart following the testimony this week of Macron cabinet chief Patrick Strzoda, and his estimation that “about ten” mission leaders were employed by the presidential office, the Élysée confirmed to Mediapart that Ludovic Chaker, who was close to Alexandre Benalla, is also a “mission leader within the president’s private head staff”. No other name was revealed, and why Chaker’s name was not provided to Mediapart last december along with the other six mission leaders it identified remains unexplained.
While the remunerations paid to the mission leaders was hidden in the documents transmitted last December, the details of their fixed-term contracts – which are all signed by Strzoda, who as presidential cabinet chief is effectively second-in-command in the hierarchy of Élysée staff (the highest position is that of Élysée secretary general Alexis Kohler) – show an important difference with the contracts of official presidential “advisors”.
While Article 6 of the terms of employment of mission leaders, and which is concerned with their “duties”, requires them to “scrupulously respect the deontological principles of the presidential office of the republic”, unlike official advisors to the president they are under no requirement to declare their personal wealth or their vested interests. Official advisors are subject to the 2013 law on transparency in public office and must declare such information to the HATVP, which was created that year following the scandal surrounding Jérôme Cahuzac, the disgraced socialist budget minister who Mediapart revealed held a secret foreign bank account.
That is the case in all the contracts concerning the mission leaders seen by Mediapart, including that of Alexandre Benalla. The situation is incomprehensible given that during the parliamentary debates in 2013 over the proposed new legislation to introduce greater probity among those in elected office and among senior staff of government departments, a move which was prompted by the Cahuzac affair, centre-left MP Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg lodged an amendment that made the requirements of the bill, notably registering personal wealth and financial interests with the HATVP, applicable also to those unidentified staff such as “mission leaders”. But the final text of the legislation appears to in effect exclude them because their appointments do not appear in the official gazette, the Journal official (JO).
“I remember very well,” said René Dosière, a recently retired socialist MP who became a specialist on the subject of spending by the Élysée, regularly denouncing excesses. “In the beginning I was for only [including] those who appeared in the JO, but then I sided with Schwartzenberg’s opinion, which won the day," he told Mediapart. “Today the law is clear, it requires all the president’s staff, as also those of ministers, whether they have the status of advisor or mission leader, to provide their declarations to the HATVP.” Indeed, the text of the legislation and the records of parliamentary debates leave no doubt of this intention.
The legislation was brought in under the presidency of socialist François Hollande, and "mission leaders" were instructed to fill in their declarations of wealth and interests to the HATVP. But the practice appears to have finally been simply faded out. In 2016, towards the end of Hollande’s term in office, 16 of government staff who did not appear in the the records of the JO provided the HATVP with their declarations (which cover a period of the preceding five years). According to information given to Mediapart, hat number appears to have significantly diminished following Macron’s election.
While the HATVP officially maintains that its remit of verification does indeed also apply to those employed by government as “mission leaders”, it nevertheless recognises its lack of power to enforce this. “The putting into practice of this control is difficult, given the High Authority has no means of knowing the identity of these unofficial advisors,” it wrote in a reference to “mission leaders” in a report dated April 2017 (one month before Macron’s election). In sum, it can only properly apply its powers to those whose names are published in the Journal officiel.
Speaking to the National Assembly (the lower house) commission of inquiry this week, Macron cabinet chief Patrick Strzoda insisted that “mission leaders” are “known to all the controlling bodies which control the functioning of the Élysée, whether that be the court of accounts [the national audit office] or the finance commissions of parliament”. But that is no substitute for the requirements of the HATVP nor, above all, the very minimal requirement of transparency before the public.
Strzoda refused to tell the commission how much Benalla was paid for his services, despite insistent questioning by opposition MPs. “I do not wish, with the mandate given to me by the president to come and answer your questions, to reply here,” he told the panel.
But Strzoda did confirm that Benalla was recently provided with an apartment within the annexe of the Élysée, known as "the Alma residence", situated on the riverside quai Branly in central Paris, like also, he said, other “people who have constraints of availability or a rhythm of work that justifies it” – which includes himself. Strzoda denied a report by French weekly news magazine L’Express which said Benalla was given a duplex apartment in the building with a surface area of 200 square metres, and also that building or decorating work had been carried out on Benalla’s request.
The Élysée cabinet chief also confirmed that Benalla was given “a service car with which to carry out his mission which very often involved him in the field”, adding that this was a “vehicle that was also integrated into the presidential cortege, which is why it was fitted out with special equipment which was installed by the Élysée garage”. According to French daily Le Monde, Benalla was also provided with a diplomatic passport.
“It was the missions given to Mr Benalla which justified these working means, they were neither privileges or advantages,” insisted Strzoda who said he wished to “deny the very numerous rumours” circulating about the extraordinary largesse given to Benalla. But that is most certainly a vain hope, for the secrecy surrounding the actions of the former bodyguard, beyond allowing for his wayward behaviour, has quite logically created a climate of suspicion and rumour, and not least the call for presidential "mission leaders" to become subject to proper standards of transparency.
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(See update to this report in the 'Boite Noire' section below)
- The French version of this article can be found here.
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English version by Graham Tearse