the controversy in 5 acts – L’Express

On the front line since the attack in Arras on Friday October 13, the tenant of Place Beauvau accused the 35-year-old footballer this Monday of being “in notorious links” with the Muslim Brotherhood. A look back at this standoff between France’s first cop for the 2022 Ballon d’Or.

The starting point of this political-media imbroglio was Sunday October 15 shortly before 6 p.m., on X (formerly Twitter). While the human toll grows a little higher every day on both sides of the border which separates Israel from the Gaza Strip, Karim Benzema publishes a message of support to the inhabitants of Gaza. “All our prayers for the inhabitants of Gaza who are once again victims of these unjust bombings which spare neither women nor children,” wrote the former Real Madrid player without any mention of the hundreds of Israeli victims who died in the Hamas offensive.

Guest the day after the show Pro Hour from CNews, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin criticizes Karim Benzema for being “in notorious links with the Muslim Brotherhood”, without elaborating further on his accusations.

But the next day, the entourage of the tenant of Place Beauvau confirmed his position and supported his remarks. “For several years, we have noticed a slow drift in Karim Benzema’s positions towards a hard, rigorous Islam, characteristic of the Brotherhood ideology consisting of disseminating Islamic norms in different spaces of society, particularly in sport,” assures we at the Ministry of the Interior.

And cite several examples to support these assertions. Among which, the player’s refusal to sing the Marseillaise during selections for the French team, his “proselytism on social networks around Muslim worship, such as fasting, prayer, pilgrimage to Mecca” or even his “support for the publication of the Russian MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov, a real call to hatred following the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the French press.

It took less than forty-eight hours for the right of the political spectrum to take up the issue. Late Wednesday morning, Senator LR Valérie Boyer calls for the loss of nationality of the Franco-Algerian player, in the event that a link between Karim Benzema and the Muslim Brotherhood is proven. “Compacting with those who declare war on us would amount to betraying one’s country,” justifies the elected official from Bouches-du-Rhône in a message published on X.

The same evening, his colleague Nadine Morano, in duplex on Cnews, deplored the fact that Karim Benzema “behaves like a paper Frenchman”, thus reiterating his remarks made two days earlier on the same channel. While no reaction had yet been made, the MEP had in fact designated Karim Benzema as “a Hamas propaganda element” who “spit on the Marseillaise”, and who, with this tweet, “spits on us a second time”. And to protest at the player’s lack of compassion “for the children beheaded in the territories of Israel”, “for these raped, disembowelled women”.

Same story with Eric Zemmour who accuses on France 2 Karim Benzema of being “a Muslim who wants to apply sharia”, specifying that “sharia provides for jihad, and jihad means killing Dominique Bernard, and killing Samuel Paty. The boss of Reconquest! went so far as to establish a “direct link” between Karim Benzema and the assassin of the French teacher.

Faced with the flood of reactions sparked by the intervention of the Minister of the Interior, Karim Benzema’s entourage is stepping up to the plate. “This is false! Karim Benzema has never had the slightest relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood”, assures this Wednesday the lawyer of the Ballon d’or, who considers “inadmissible” the fact that “the first policeman in France” is ” capable of making such remarks without verification.”

“Praying on October 15 for civilian populations under bombs which spare neither women nor children obviously constitutes neither propaganda for Hamas, nor complicity in terrorism nor acts of collaboration,” insists Me Vigier.

Guest of the RMC morning show this Thursday morning, the player’s lawyer confirmed that he intended to file a complaint against Gérald Darmanin for the comments made at the beginning of the week on Cnews. Without ruling out the possibility of a complaint “for public insult”, Me Vigier declared that he was thinking about “this law on false information”, believing that “we do not do that lightly when we are Minister of Interior”.

Under fire from criticism since his controversial positions following Hamas’ surprise attack against Israel, Jean-Luc Mélenchon supports Karim Benzema in a message published on X this Thursday, in which he directly addresses to the player: “Hello Mr. Benzema. I don’t know you and I don’t know anything about football.” And to continue by accusing the “French government” and “its friends” of “demonizing” him.

The day before, LFI European MP Manon Aubry reacted, accusing Gérald Darmanin and Valérie Boyer of “pouring (their) hatred” onto Karim Benzema who does not intend, as his lawyer indicated, to stop there. In a nutshell, the standoff between Gérald Darmanin and Karim Benzema is perhaps only just beginning.