On Monday September 13th 2021 President Emmanuel Macron's former bodyguard and security adviser Alexandre Benalla stood trial following an incident in 2018 when he was filmed assaulting protestors at a demonstration. In addition to assault, Benalla is also accused of interfering in the operation of the police without lawful excuse, of forgery and using a false instrument in relation to a diplomatic passport and unlawfully carrying a firearm. In this op-ed article Mediapart's Fabrice Arfi argues that the importance of the Benalla case goes beyond the conduct of the president's trusted bodyguard and adviser. He says that the high-profile affair, and in particular a speech that the president gave just one week after it was revealed in the press, showed the world there is something quite illiberal about Emmanuel Macron.
The publication of former 'First Lady' Valérie Trierweiler's book about her relationship with President François Hollande and their bitter break-up has provoked a media storm in France. Ordinarily, says Mediapart's editor François Bonnet, one would not be interested in the “bourgeois vaudeville” on show in 'Merci pour ce moment'. Except for the fact that its description of the president’s failings – his insincerity, political calculations and even lies – chime exactly with the recent statements of a string of politicians and former ministers who have worked closely with Hollande in government. In this respect, argues François Bonnet, the book provides the missing link in the story of François Hollande's “descent into hell”, leads to some important political questions and helps highlight how France has now become, in effect, a neoliberal monarchy.
The British Queen Elizabeth II is in France for the D-Day commemorations, in what may prove to be her last trip to the country. At her side as usual – or rather, two paces behind – is her consort Prince Philip. Mediapart's Antoine Perraud takes a look at Philip's close connections with France as a child and comes up with a theory about why the gaffe-prone consort behaves and talks as he does. According to this theory Prince Philip has sought – not always entirely successfully – to suppress his colourful and varied family roots in order to conform to the demands of the British monarchy. And now, argues Perraud, Prince Philip has himself become a symbol of a once diverse and dynamic Europe that has lost its way.
