Let’s remember. On October 17, 2022, Karim Benzema received the Ballon d’Or, he is the fifth French football player to receive this supreme award. You don’t have to wait for an astonishing tweet to cause a huge reaction on social networks. “KB9!” This is the player’s nickname made up of his initials and jersey number. In the process, a second tweet: “Two letters and a number which will remain in the history of football. 24 years after Zidane, Karim Benzema brings a new Golden Ball to France. Congratulations to him!”. The author is a great football fan who happens to be President of the Republic. Emmanuel Macron does not have a monopoly on this passion. A little later, it was the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire who reacted: on his Twitter account. Posting a photo of Karim Benzema, the politician wrote: “In the caption. #Nueve #BallonDor”
Benzema this hero, Benzema this model. When the controversy over Ramadan caught up with the football world last April, the Minister of Sports sought appeasement and found a good example: “I think there is an analysis of the state of form, of the how the participation of these players compares to other players in the team. We saw that Benzema had performed very well, so this is relative and depends on the athletes.”
On Sunday, Karim Benzema, who now plays in Saudi Arabia, published a tweet in which he spoke of “the inhabitants of Gaza who are once again victims of these unjust bombings which spare neither women nor children.” A week earlier, during the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, he had not had a word for the victims.
Radio silence. Benzema? Not know. There is no longer anyone within the executive to react. Only Bruno Retailleau, the president of the LR group in the Senate, picks up his phone to share his reaction on Europe 1: “That he has a thought for the Palestinian cause” does not shock him, but the Vendéen asks him to “do another tweet condemning in the strongest possible terms this crime against humanity.” And Eric Zemmour did not let the opportunity pass, Sunday evening on BFM: “Benzema, I had not seen him make a tweet to pity, like a human being, on the Israeli babies who had been disembowelled or even, like a Frenchman, on poor Dominique Bernard.” In football, as in politics, it happens that we score goals against our camp.