The senior bodyguard to President Emmanuel Macron, fired for beating May Day protesters, said in a newspaper interview on Thursday that he had made a mistake that enabled the president’s enemies to exploit the incident to tarnish him, reports Reuters.
Alexandre Benalla was fired last week after being identified in footage showing him hitting a male protester and dragging away a woman while off duty and wearing a riot helmet and police tags.
Critics say Macron’s office failed to properly punish Benalla, or refer him promptly to judicial authorities over an incident which has sparked the biggest political crisis of his tenure.
Benalla told Le Monde in his first interview since the crisis erupted that he had committed a “big mistake”, but played down how serious his actions were.
“I was the weak link ... my case has been used to settle scores, it’s taken on proportions... I won’t say I was the fall-guy, I’m just saying it served various interests, an interest to get at the president of the republic,” Benalla said.
Benalla did not give names but accused “politicians and police” of exploiting the incident for their ends.
Opposition lawmakers have launched a united offensive against Macron saying his handling of the case shows he has lost touch with ordinary people since taking office 14 months ago.
Benalla is now the target of a judicial investigation and there are also probes under way in the upper and lower houses of parliament into how Macron’s office dealt with the incident.
Macron was unapologetic when pressed to comment on Wednesday during a visit to southern France. “I have been here for an hour and nobody has brought the issue up,” he told BFM television. “Clearly, the heat and fatigue are getting to Parisians, because here everything is fine.”