PARIS: At just 26, Alexandre Benalla — the French presidential bodyguard filmed beating a protester — enjoyed a meteoric rise before sparking the biggest scandal yet of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

A former bouncer, Benalla grew up in a working-class neighbourhood of Evreux, a sleepy town in the northern region of Normandy, where former classmates remembered him as mild-mannered and friendly.

He was a keen rugby player, though he had yet to take on the burly frame of the man filmed wrestling a young man and woman during violent May 1 protests, while wearing the helmet of a riot officer.

A member of the Young Socialists, Benalla joined the party’s security team in 2010, guarding Francois Hollande during his winning presidential campaign two years later.

Eric Plumer, who was head of the Socialist security corps in 2010 when Benalla was hired, said that he had trained the young man himself and that his behaviour had been “irreproachable”.

“He worked very hard on the tasks I gave him,” Plumer said.

But Benalla ran into trouble when he was posted onto the security detail of industry minister Arnaud Montebourg.

“I let him go after a week, after a serious professional error — he caused a car accident in my presence, and wanted to flee the scene,” Montebourg said.

‘Rambo’

Benalla, who was due to get married last weekend and who reportedly holds a master’s degree in law, then spent some time working for a security company in Casablanca, Morocco.

After returning to France he joined Macron’s security team for last year’s election campaign, soon becoming the future president’s closest bodyguard.

After Macron’s victory in May 2017 Benalla was given a top role in the presidential security team.

Until his suspension and subsequent sacking over the videos of him manhandling the protesters — which have led to criminal charges and opposition cries of an attempted cover-up — he was often photographed at Macron’s side.

Several journalists complained of Benalla’s heavy-handed behaviour while protecting Macron on the campaign trail, and the Young Communists have claimed he beat one of their members at a protest in 2016.

At the headquarters of Macron’s centrist party En Marche, he earned the nickname “Rambo”.

Emails just before the election revealed a run-in with party treasurer Cedric O after he tried to buy pellet guns and riot shields for the campaign.

“I’ve never heard of political parties having armed guards,” O wrote. “I actually find that pretty crazy and I would like to know 1. whether it’s justified and 2. whether it’s legal.”

Benalla applied for an interior ministry permit to carry a weapon during the campaign, which was refused. He eventually managed to get permission through the Paris police.

Away from the office, Benalla was ranked as a lieutenant-colonel in the reserves of France’s national military police, the gendarmerie — a senior rank rarely granted to anyone under the age of 40.

Benalla was given the rank due to “the level of his expertise”, according to the gendarmerie.

He left the reserves at his own request in 2017, continuing with the force instead as a security expert.

Despite his role in the gendarmerie reserves, he has never worked as a police officer, and it remains unclear how he got the police helmet and armband he is seen wearing in the videos.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2018