The Benjamin Griveaux case

All the details of this bomb which shocked the French political world

The 11th of Februray, Benjamin Griveaux has abandoned his candidacy for the municipal elections of the city of Paris because of leaked privates videos of him.

Indeed, 42-year-old Benjamin Griveaux announced to AFP that he was retiring from the race at the Paris City Hall.The renunciation of the former candidate LREM, one of the pillars of Macronia, is the consequence of the diffusion on internet of intimate videos.

Originally, the videos addressed to a woman of a man masturbating - whose face is not visible, but attributed to Benjamin Griveaux - were posted on Wednesday evening on a site created ad hoc and has since become inaccessible. Initially shared by a handful of politicians in private messages, they were then relayed on social networks, notably by the ex-LREM Joachim Son-Forget. On Saturday afternoon, Benjamin Griveaux filed a complaint against X and the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.

On Friday morning, a Russian artist Piotr Pavlenski, claimed to be behind the publication of the incriminated videos. He justifies it by denouncing the "hypocrisy" of Benjamin Griveaux. This man, a political refugee in France since May 2017, was already sentenced in January 2019 to three years in prison, two of which were suspended for various offences.

The consequences of this case are huge : The renunciation of Benjamin Griveaux forced the presidential party and its centrist allies to find another candidate to try to conquer the town hall of Paris, less than a month before the election.