Emmanuel Macron under fire over probe into senior security official filmed 'beating' protester

President Emmanuel Macron of France is facing calls to fire a senior aide at the Elysée after prosecutors launched an investigation over a film of him beating up a protester.

The film shows Alexandre Benalla - in charge of Mr Macron’s security during his electoral campaign last year and now assistant to the president’s chief of staff - in a police helmet and armband but no uniform joining CRS riot police at a protest on 1 May.

The incident took place in a popular tourist spot at Place de la Contrescarpe in the fifth district of Paris.

In the film shot by a student activist, he grabs a woman by the neck, charging her down the street. Shortly afterwards he returns to the scene, drags a young man along the floor, grabs him by the neck and hits him.

Riot police present do not intervene to stop him.

The Paris prosecutor on Thursday launched a preliminary probe into “violence by a person with a public service mission, usurping a function and usurping signs reserved for public authority”.

Patrick Strzoda, Mr Macron’s principal private secretary, confirmed that Mr Benalla was the man in the clip, filmed by a bystander.

Mr Strzoda said he had authorised Mr Benalla to accompany police during the May Day demonstration as an “observer”. “When I saw the videos, I summoned him the same day and asked if it was him,” which he confirmed, he said.

The ex-security chief was then suspended for two weeks, demoted and threatened with dismissal if he did anything else untoward. He is still working at the Elysée and played a part in organising a huge garden party thrown for the victorious French football squad on Monday.

Elysée spokesman Bruno Roger-Petit said he had been handed “the most serious sanction ever pronounced against a project manager working at the Elysée” and that he had been “relieved of his duties in terms of the organisation and security of the president’s movements”.

A second man filmed at the protest called Vincent Crase, a gendarme reservist occasionally called to work for presidential security, was also filmed “overstepping the mark”, confirmed Mr Roger-Petit.

“All collaboration between him and the presidency has been terminated,” he said.

Calling their actions "unacceptable", Gérard Collomb, the interior minister, said he had asked the police's internal investigative unit to "determine in which conditions" Mr Benalla and Mr Crase were authorised to take part in the May Day protest alongside security forces.

"These two people had no legitimacy to intervene. They had been authorised to act as observers, which is common practice," he said.

Despite the attempts at damage limitation, the incident sparked angry reaction from the opposition, which called for a parliamentary inquiry.

“Faced with this double fault and clear and unacceptable attack, (Mr Benalla) must resign,” wrote Socialist senator Rachid Ternal.

“Questions: why did the police let Alexandre Benalla go ahead? Why wasn’t justice seized? Why did Emmanuel Macron leave it at simply sidelining him? What’s this thug doing at the Elysée security anyway?,” asked Eric Coquerel of leftist group La France Insoumise (France Unbowed).

Laurent Wauquiez, head of the centre-Right party, The Republicans, called on Mr Macron to "speak out” on the matter, and answer questions over what Mr Benalla was doing at the demonstration and whether there were "attempts to hush up this affair”.

There were even calls from within Mr Macron's party, Republic on the Move, LREM for Mr Benalla to resign.

MP Laurent Saint-Martin said: "My personal opinion is that after such acts, one can no longer work for the president, one can no longer work at the Elysée full stop". It was important to "prove that there can be no untouchable Republic", he told CNews.

This is not the first time Mr Benalla has been accused of unexplained brutality.

Public Sénat, the parliamentary TV channel, said it footage of him manhandling one of its reporters during Mr Macron's presidential campaign. When contacted at the time about this "inappropriate behaviour", the campaign team declined to respond, the channel said.

Leaked emails between the Macron campaign team at the end of his campaign - which they later blamed on Russian hackers - uncovered an exchange in which aides expressed shock that Mr Benalla had asked to procure guns with rubber bullets and a stun grenade. The request was denied and dubbed "dangerous".

Christophe Barbier, political analyst on BFM TV, said: “This is the worst political scandal to hit Emmanuel Macron’s presidency”.

“We’re in a mature democracy in 2018. We’re not in Chile or Argentina in the 1970s and 80s.”

Asked if he had confidence in his bodyguard on Wednesday night, Mr Macron pointed to a member of his entourage, saying: "My bodyguard's over there."