The Elysée and « Gladio B »
During the Cold War, the pro-US states experienced a bloody precedent of illegal, secret repression. While it is clear that this system has been progressively dismantled in Europe, it has never been interrupted in the « Greater Middle East » although it has been transformed. The behaviour of the Elysée in the context of the Benalla affair allows us to admit the possibility that this story is not yet over.
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) 
- Although everyone saw Alexandre Benalla escort the President of the Republic almost everywhere he went, he was in no way tasked with his security. So what was his function ?
Who is Alexandre Benalla ?
Revealed by Le Monde, the Benalla affair has given us a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes in the Elysée. One of Emmanuel Macron’s collaborators is a hooligan who, posing as a police officer and equipped with a police armband and a police radio, took to the streets on 1 May and beat up two demonstrators. He enjoyed « unhealthy cronyism », to borrow the phrase from Prefect Michel Delpuech. This aspect of the affair is now the object of a judicial enquiry in which 5 people are indicted. This is doubled by an administrative investigation by the Inspection Générale de la Police Nationale (IGPN).
It so happens that far from being a vague collaborator, this yobbo was none other than the « Assistant Director of the cabinet of the President of the Republic ». He escorted his boss on a great number of occasions, both public and private, and possessed a copy of the keys to the President’s second home. He had been awarded a permanent license to carry a weapon because of his function (which was what exactly?) He had been provided with an official car equipped with flashing lights and sirens (by whom?) He owned an access card to the hémicycle of the National Assembly, a diplomatic passport, and Secret-Défense accreditation (why?)
According to the police unions which gave testimony under oath before the Senatorial Information Mission, the President’s street thug inspired « terror » in police officers. He would not hesitate to threaten and curse high-ranking officers of the Police and Gendarmerie to whom he would even issue orders. He went to meetings with the Minister of the Interior and the Prefecture of Police accompanied by « barbouzes, » or secret agents. He recruited « security guards » for the Elysée. All these charges are firmly denied by the cabinet of the President of the Republic.
President Macron declared that he had been « betrayed » by Alexandre Benalla, and that he had sanctioned him with fifteen days of suspension without salary and reassignment to a less important position. However, for « technical » reasons, the financial sanction has not yet been applied. Besides this, a few days later, due to a « lack of personnel », the same Benalla once again accompanied the President as if nothing had happened. None of the people tasked with the President’s security, not even the Minister of the Interior, were troubled by this persistent proximity, although they all knew about the beatings of 1 May.
This, of course, is why the parliamentarians of the Board of Enquiry asked the obvious question - was Alexandre Benalla part of a developing parallel police force under the unique command of President Macron?
It is important to understand that in the French Constitutional system, the President of the Republic has no power over the administrations which are ruled by the government alone. His security is guaranteed by civil and military personnel [1]. If the President had a security service placed only under his orders, he could not be controlled, since he would benefit from the « irresponsibility » accorded to the President for the duration of his mandate.
After six days of mutism, the President of the Republic addressed his faithful supporters, who were gathered for a private soirée. Forgetting that even these supporters were asking questions, he mobilised them against the enemies who were harassing him. He declared that he had been betrayed by the assistant director of his cabinet. He claimed that he was the only chief and thus the only person « responsible » for this casting error (in reality, the sole author of this error).
His speech was quite graceful and touching. But it did not answer the question asked.
Above all, it hindered the work of the parliamentarians by relieving the personalities questioned of the necessity to answer in detail, since only the President is - or rather, will be when his mandate ends - « responsible ». Move along, there’s nothing to see here!
The parliamentarians had already been destabilised by a statement made under oath by the Director of Public Order for the Préfecture de Police, Alain Gibelin, which contradicted the declarations from the Elysée… until he corrected his statement the next day; then by the contradictions between the official description of Alexandre Benalla’s position and the motives figuring on the prefectorial order for his license to bear arms; or again, by the declaration from the Elysée that he did not enjoy the privilege of official accommodation, which was contradicted by the fiscal declaration concerning his change of address of 9 July at the barracks of Quai Branly.
Not to mention the theft of the surveillance videos from the Préfecture de Police of Paris by police officers acting on behalf of Alexandre Benalla; videos which occupied an entire day at the Elysée, where they were watched by numerous collaborators.
The « Gladio B » hypothesis
We have published in these columns that the mission of Monsieur Benalla was to create a French equivalent of the US Secret Service which would integrate both the function of Presidential security and the fight against terrorism [2] ; information which has today been widely borrowed by our colleagues without mentioning us.
The Minister of the Interior, who declared that he knew nothing of this affair, is convinced that the recasting of the Elysée’s security services was not aimed at keeping them sheltered from the control of the traditional hierarchies. We hope that he has not allowed himself to be led astray on this subject too.
Nonetheless, we may remember that during the Cold War, the United States and the United Kingdom had created, in all of the allied states, a service designed to combat Soviet influence – without the knowledge of the national institutions. This system is known to historians as the stay-behind, and to the public by the name of its Italian branch, Gladio. All over the world, it was under the joint command of the CIA and MI6, via the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) [3], except for Europe, where it was connected to NATO [4]
The main operational officials of this stay-behind network (in other words, capable of becoming clandestine in the case of a Soviet invasion) were the ex-officials of the Nazi repression. While the French people know that SS captain and head of the Gestapo in Lyon, Klaus Barbie, became the official representative of the stay-behind network in Bolivia working against Che Guevara, they do not know, for example, that the Police Prefect for Paris, the collaborator Maurice Papon, who massacred a hundred Algerians on 17 October 1961, was one of the leaders of the network in France, working against the FLN [5]. Here in Damascus where I live, people remember another SS officer and director of the camp at Drancy, Alois Brunner, who was placed as an advisor to the Syrian secret services by the CIA and MI6 in order to prevent the country from swinging over into the Soviet camp. He was arrested by President Bachar el-Assad as soon as he came to power.
In France, when the stay-behind turned against France, accused it of leaving Algeria to the Soviets, organised the coup d’état in 1961 and financed the OAS (Organisation de l’Armée Secrète), President De Gaulle recuperated certain of its agents in order to form a militia to work against the militia - the SAC (Service d’Action Civique) [6].
Despite appearances, these stories are not as old as all that - the world of politics still hosts personalities who were part of the stay-behind network. For example, the current President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker, was the head of Gladio in Luxembourg [7].
- The first General Secretary of « En Marche ! », Ludovic Chaker, is allegedly an agent of the DGSE. He is said to have hired – by accident – a friend of Jawad Bendaoud, « Daesh’s landlord, » as a bodyguard for the candidate Macron. Today he works at the Elysée where he « doubles » the anti-terrorist task force of Prefect Bousquet de Florian.
Of course, in the 21st century, we no longer torture and assassinate people as we used to, we simply discredit trouble-makers by way of the Press. Above all, there is no more Soviet Union, and consequently no more stay-behind network. But the personnel we used and who were replaced have had to be recycled. A number of elements attest to the fact that these agents first of all led the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then, today, against Russia [8], to the point where they are labelled by the FBI as Gladio B [9]. The efficiency of this network in the « Greater Middle East » over the last 17 years needs no further proof.
Precisely, the question of the fight against terrorism – or its manipulation - was handled by the United States secret service, which the Elysée was preparing to replicate. Oddly enough, the Elysées anti-terrorist task force, directed by Prefect Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, is already doubled by a « cell » entrusted to an executive of the President’s chief of staff, Admiral Bernard Rogel. According to L’Opinion, this executive, Ludovic Chaker – who hired Benalla – is a « veteran » agent of the Direction Générale de la Sécurite Exterieure (DGSE) [10]
We are not attempting to compare Alexandre Benalla with Maurice Papon, but to enquire whether an element of an illegal force of repression is in the process of being (re)created in Europe.
Who revealed the Benalla affair?
It is extremely clear that in the absence of complaints by Monsieur Benalla’s victims, and given the difficulty of defining the nature of his acts of violence on the video, this affair did not spontaneously become public.
- The ex-advisor of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, has just settled in Brussels with the mission of « exploding Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel like a game of skittles ».
The people who revealed the affair must have been really well informed, not only about Alexandre Benalla but also about the confusion that currently reigns in the Elysée. However, their official status apparently obliged them to remain discreet. This immediately makes us think of officials of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure (DGSI) or the Direction de la Protection du Renseignement and de la Sécurité de la Défense (DRSD).
It is not impossible that certain police officers gave Alexandre Benalla the police equipment that he usurped on 1 May. In this case, it means that he fell into a trap [11].
We are no longer in the same situation as during the Cold War and the Algerian War. This affair has nothing to do with the SAC. President Macron was not seeking to protect the nation from a militia by breaking the law himself. On the contrary, we are in a situation of confrontation between, on the one hand, the Russia-United States alliance, and on the other, the Anglo-Saxon deep state which is on the rampage against President Trump.
Translation
Pete Kimberley
Pete Kimberley
[1] During periods of cohabitation between a President and a Prime Minister of opposed political formations, the security of the President is exclusively assured by gendarmes in order to avoid revealing to the Prime Minister what the President is doing.
[2] “Alexandre Benalla’s mission”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 28 July 2018.
[3] « La Ligue anti-communiste mondiale, une internationale du crime », par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 12 mai 2004.
[4] Secret Warfare : Operation Gladio and NATO’s Stay-Behind Armies, Daniele Ganser, Routledge 2005. Version française : Les Armées Secrètes de l’OTAN, Demi-Lune, 2007. The stay-behind has been the object of numerous documentaries, including French-language Les Armées secrètes de l’OTAN, by Emmanuel Amara for France-Television, or Au cœur de la Guerre froide : les hommes de l’ombre by Lucio Mollica for RTBF. As for me, I wrote this article about twenty years ago - « Stay-behind : les réseaux d’ingérence américains », Voltaire Network, 20 August 2001.
[5] « La guerre secrète en France », par Daniele Ganser, Réseau Voltaire, 18 avril 2011.
[6] « Quand le stay-behind portait De Gaulle au pouvoir », « Quand le stay-behind voulait remplacer De Gaulle », par Thierry Meyssan, Réseau Voltaire, 27 août et 10 septembre 2001.
[7] « Gladio-Luxembourg : Juncker contraint de démissionner », Réseau Voltaire, 10 juillet 2013.
[8] Read the second part of Sous nos yeux. Du 11-septembre à Donald Trump, Thierry Meyssan, Demi-Lune 2017.
[9] Read and watch the numerous works and documentaries by Sibel Edmonds.
[10] «Ludovic Chaker: un ami de Benalla est « chargé de mission » auprès de l’amiral Rogel (actualisé -2)», Jean-Dominique Merchet, L’Opinion, 26 juillet 2018.
[11] Read the deposition and letter of Alain Gibelin before the Commission of the Assemblée Nationale and compare them with the declarations of Alexandre Benalla in Le Monde - 27 July.
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