In February 2020, Benjamin Griveaux decided to give up the race for mayor of Paris after the publication of intimate videos about him. In the documentary Five years, broadcast on January 16 on France 5, the former secretary of state has agreed to speak on this affair which now bears his name.
Benjamin Griveaux has not forgotten this gloomy month of February 2020. And for good reason, the one who at the time was a candidate for mayor of Paris under the LREM label finally decided to renounce this election, after having been targeted by the dissemination of private videos of a sexual nature. If he has been rather discreet since the scandal, the former secretary of state has accepted to evoke this case which now bears his name, during a documentary broadcast on January 16 on France 5. In this subject entitled Five years, the journalists Raphaëlle Baillot and Jérôme Bermyn returned to the five years that have passed since the arrival of Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée. Unsurprisingly, they brought up the Griveaux affair. More surprisingly, the main interested party agreed to testify in front of the camera.
As recalled by Huffington Post, videos and messages of a sexual nature, which Benjamin Griveaux sent to a certain Alexandra de Taddeo, circulated en masse on social networks. Forty-eight hours after the dissemination of this content on the web, the LREM candidate for mayor of Paris announced his withdrawal from the campaign, then from political life. Very quickly, Benjamin Griveaux understood that everything stopped for him : “I’m not announcing it yet but it is obvious that I will not be able to continue to apply.“How did he experience this affair on a personal level?”What I feel first is anger with myself. I obviously lacked vigilance. That is the anger of the politician. And then there was the anger of the husband and father of three, and this one I would keep to myself“, entrusted the one who resigned from his mandate of deputy in 2021.
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What has become of him since?
Since this controversy, Benjamin Griveaux has made his comeback … on television. In an interview with JDD in August 2021, the former government spokesperson revealed the outlines of his “new life”. Among his projects was a collaboration on a monthly television show, broadcast on the economic channel B Smart, which debuted last September. Baptized “Smart & Strat”, this monthly show “will be interested in business strategies”, said Sibeth Ndiaye’s predecessor. “I will receive bosses, young and old, alongside the talented Florence Duprat.” A proposal received last spring, which he accepted after careful consideration: “Going to the other side of the mirror is a gamble: TV is a profession. I would never have gone alone, on autopilot. I have had enough opportunity in the past to be in front of journalists to measure the difficulty of the exercise. And it is not because we have been interviewed often that we make a good interviewer “, explained the one who also created a strategy consulting firm dedicated to business leaders.
Photo credits: DOMINIQUE JACOVIDES / BESTIMAGE