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.