Accused Tuesday on CNEWS by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin of being “in connection” with the Muslim Brotherhood, the French attacker Karim Benzema announced this Wednesday, October 18 through his lawyer Mr. Hugues Vigier his intention to file a complaint against the strongman of Place Beauvau.
The response from the former French international should be given to the court. Pointed out for his alleged “link with the Muslim Brotherhood” Tuesday evening by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin on CNEWS, Karim Benzema reacted this Wednesday through his lawyer Mr. Hugues Vigier.
“This is false! Karim Benzema has never had the slightest relationship with this organization. He also chose to live in Arabia (he joined the Al-Ittihad club last June) which declared the said terrorist organization, which France has never done,” his lawyer reacted in a press release. relayed this Wednesday.
The latter specified that the French footballer was considering filing a complaint against the minister, according to information relayed by The Parisian.
“We are considering proceedings against this minister in application, for example, of the law on the manipulation of information dear to our government… and defamation or even public insult, because this non-existent link with the Muslim Brotherhood, which he says is notorious, is obviously presented as derogatory. It is not acceptable for those who govern to believe they are authorized to do anything out of pure opportunism.”
Gérald Darmanin’s entourage evokes a “slow drift towards hard Islam”
As a reminder, Gérald Darmanin had directly targeted the former player of the French team for his supposed relations with the Islamist organization this Tuesday evening.
“Mr. Benzema has, as we all know, notorious links with the Muslim Brotherhood. We are attacking a hydra that is the Muslim Brotherhood because they give an atmosphere of jihadism, as Gilles Kepel (a specialist in Islam and the contemporary Arab world) said,” said the tenant of Place Beauvau on our website. air Tuesday evening.
The minister’s entourage continued the offensive launched against the striker this Wednesday to AFP. “For several years, we have noted a slow drift in Karim Benzema’s positions towards a hard, rigorist Islam, characteristic of the Brotherhood ideology consisting of disseminating Islamic norms in different spaces of society, particularly in sport,” they said. estimated by some close friends of Gérald Darmanin.`
The latter took as an example the player’s refusal to sing the Marseillaise during selections with the Blues, his “proselytism on social networks around Muslim worship” or even his “support for the publication of the Russian MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov”. The latter was considered a real call to hatred in response to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the French press.
The entourage of the Minister of the Interior nevertheless assured that the player’s “positions” “did not constitute legal proceedings”. He nevertheless added that the latter “constitute a particularly vague signal from an athlete benefiting from such an audience”.
A complaint planned against Nadine Morano
Beyond his potential legal action against Gérald Darmanin, Karim Benzema also plans to file a complaint for defamation against European MP Nadine Morano (LR) and advertising executive Frank Tapiro. The first compared the striker to “an element of Hamas propaganda” in an interview given to Europe 1. The second portrayed the player as “a collaborator” and an “accomplice of Hamas”.
“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. It is, I want to believe, natural compassion in the face of what many today describe as war crimes being committed in Gaza, but which takes nothing away from the horror of the terrorist acts of October 7, which not to be discussed. By using these scandalous terms against him, Nadine Morano and Frank Tapiro have caused a profound and unbearable attack on his honor,” said the athlete’s lawyer in the columns of the French daily.
Legal action would also be considered against Senator LR Valérie Boyer, who requested the forfeiture of nationality and the withdrawal of the 2022 Golden Ball from the attacker in the event of proven links with the Muslim Brotherhood. “Such a measure, impossible against a French native with French parents, would only remind Europe of Nazi Germany,” replied Me Hugues Vigier on this subject.
At the origin of this controversy, Karim Benzema published on X this Sunday a text of support for the inhabitants of Gaza, particularly affected by the clashes between Israel and Hamas in recent days. “All our prayers for the inhabitants of Gaza who are once again victims of these unjust bombings which spare neither women nor children,” the attacker published on the social network.
He was widely criticized by a handful of politicians for his lack of reaction to the Hamas attack perpetrated against Israelis during a rave party on October 7.