Ex-security aide to Macron says he betrayed president

PARIS – The former presidential security aide at the centre of a firestorm over his violent behaviour toward a protester on May Day says President Emmanuel Macron is not to blame and that he committed “a form of betrayal” of his boss.

The identification 10 days ago of Alexandre Benalla as the man in a video acting violently toward a protester has swelled into a political crisis for Macron. Benalla was embedded with police as an observer that day.

In his first TV interview, Benalla told TF1 that he didn’t feel he had committed a “reprehensible” act, but conceded his actions were “not the role of a collaborator” of the president who “has nothing to do with May 1.”

Among charges Benalla now faces is “violence in a group.”