It’s a surprising return. Didier Deschamps added striker Karim Benzema to his list for the Euro de foot (June 11-July 11), after being world champion without him in 2018. “I have always ignored my personal case, the France team does not belong to me, it is above everything”, justified the coach on Tuesday evening, while “KB9” is living at 33 one of the best seasons of his career at Real Madrid.
Karim Benzema in the France team is an obvious talent: 27 goals in 81 caps. But it is also controversies such as the sextape affair or his sidelining and his accusing remarks against Didier Deschamps, which gave rise to a few political passes of arms… A look back at more than five years of shelving.
- 2015: from armband to sextape
To open the year 2015, Karim Benzema wears the armband of the Blues for the first time in his career, against Brazil (1-3). He scored twice against Armenia (4-0) on October 8, 2015. Without knowing that he was playing his last minutes before a long time. Suddenly, his future darkened indeed when he was indicted on November 5, 2015 in the case of the sextape blackmail exercised on his teammate Mathieu Valbuena. His judicial control prohibits him from meeting him. In mid-December, the president of the FFF Noël Le Graët announced that he “is no longer selectable” as long as his legal situation “does not change”.
The background to the case is as follows: after recovering an intimate video of Mathieu Valbuena, blackmailers decided to extort money from the latter. They contacted a relative of Karim Benzema, Karim Zenati, hoping that the Real Madrid star could act as an intermediary. In October 2015, the two internationals meet at Clairefontaine, the training center of the French football team. Karim Benzema explains that he can “introduce someone he trusts” to Mathieu Valbuena, according to the referral order consulted by AFP, to help him “manage” the possible publication of this video. “Watch out Math, they’re big, big thugs,” he warns. After this discussion, Karim Benzema calls his friend Karim Zenati and explains to him: “He does not take us seriously”. A “we” which, according to the prosecution, shows that the Madrid striker “includes himself” in this blackmail enterprise. The Real Madrid football player pleads friendly advice to “a friend” and has several times explained that he wanted to “help” Mathieu Valbuena, where justice suspects him of criminal pressure.
- March 2016: reviews by Manuel Valls
On March 11, 2016, Karim Benzema benefited from the lifting of his judicial review and the ban on meeting Mathieu Valbuena, currently under contract with Olympiakos in Greece. Euro 2016 becomes possible again for him. But on March 15, Manuel Valls estimated on RMC that the conditions “are not met today”, recalling that he “is still under investigation”. “Compared to youth, a great sportsman must be exemplary,” said the Prime Minister that day.
Karim Benzema’s response on Twitter: “I have been a professional for 12 seasons: 541 games played 0 red card 11 yellow card(s)!!! And some talk(s) about my exemplarity???” According to statements reported by the chained Duck, the President of the Republic François Hollande asks his ministers “to stop their bullshit”, while the Minister of Sports Patrick Kanner also spoke on this affair.
The words of Manuel Valls do not pass with Eric Dupond-Moretti, then the player’s lawyer. On April 14, 2016, the current Minister of Justice declared on RMC “resent the Prime Minister for having interfered in the selection of the France team” and believes that “it is not his job”.
- June 2016: Benzema revives the “racism” controversy
In the name of setting an example, Noël Le Graët and Didier Deschamps announced on April 13 that they would not take him to Euro 2016. On June 1, in an interview in the form of a settling of scores published in the Spanish sports daily brand, Karim Benzema accuses the coach of the Blues of having “given in to pressure from a racist part of France”. The Real Madrid striker evokes the recent electoral successes of the National Front to support his point. Two days later, the coach’s Breton residence was vandalized, with a tag calling him “racist” on a perimeter wall.
In March 2017, Benoît Hamon, then PS presidential candidate, spoke about the Benzema case in the program The evening team. According to the socialist, the return of the striker to the France team is “a sporting subject”. But Benoît Hamon nevertheless regrets “a climate, in France, racist which exists and which is strong”.
- May 2021: elected officials denounce the “racist” remarks of Senator RN Stéphane Ravier
As soon as Karim Benzema’s return to the Blues was announced on Tuesday evening, several elected officials welcomed this recall of the Real Madrid striker, such as LREM deputy Sacha Houlié, who spoke of a “deserved return”, or Rachida Dati, the former Minister of Justice and LR mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris, saying he is “happy with his long-awaited return to the France team”, stressing that he is “still very committed to children in difficulty”.
Some elected officials also castigate the “racist” remarks of the senator of the National Rally of Marseille Stéphane Ravier who described the player on Twitter as “French paper”.
Words that immediately aroused the ire of number 2 of EELV Sandra Regol on the set of Franceinfo: “Mr Ravier allows himself to judge those who have the right to be French with odious expressions (…) He used the expression ‘French of paper’ which is an odious racism that very few people from the political class use because it is really from the extreme and from the worst extreme right”, she retorted. For the president of the LREM group in the National Assembly Christophe Castaner, “the rare times that Stéphane Ravier scores, it’s always against his side, against France”, he tweeted.
- Benzema tried in October 2021 in the sextape case
After six years of legal twists and turns, the Real Madrid star, indicted for “complicity in attempted blackmail”, will be tried by the Versailles court from October 20 to 22, 2021. He will appear free, without judicial review, and theoretically risks five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros.
In this case, four other men are being prosecuted for attempted blackmail – including Karim Zenati – and one of them is also indicted for breach of trust. Karim Benzema was also initially prosecuted for “participation in a criminal association” before this qualification was abandoned.