Former security aide to Macron sentenced to 1 year in prison
ABC News
A former security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron who triggered controversy by assaulting a protester at a 2018 May Day march has been convicted of illegal violence and other offenses and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment
PARIS -- A former security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron who triggered controversy by assaulting a protester at a 2018 May Day march was convicted Friday of illegal violence and other offenses and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.
A Paris court found Alexandre Benalla, 30, guilty of deliberate violence in the 2018 incident in the capital, at which Macron was not present. He was also convicted of illegally carrying a gun at a 2017 Macron campaigning event, and illegal use of diplomatic passports after he left the president’s service.
Benalla received a three-year prison sentence — two years of which were suspended — and will be allowed to spend the remaining 12 months at his mother’s home provided he wears an electronic tag.
Benalla’s actions, and the way Macron’s office responded to them, had caused the French leader’s first political crisis.
