The serious accusations made by the French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, against the footballer Karim Benzema, whom he accused of being a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, have heated up the political debate. The controversy takes place at a time of maximum alert due to the fear of an Islamist attack and a few days before a likely reform of the immigration law.
Several leaders of the left, such as the socialist Olivier Faure or the environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau, considered Darmanin’s words and his accusation without evidence to be scandalous and inadmissible. The former presidential candidate of Reagrupament Nacional (RN, extreme right), Marine Le Pen, reacted in a different way and emphasized the contradictory position of the minister, who on the one hand attacks Benzema for his alleged proximity to the Germans Muslims and, on the other hand, has never asked for the official ban in France of this Islamist organization, founded in 1928 and one of whose ramifications is Hamas, in power in Gaza. According to Le Pen, Darmanin, focusing on the last Ballon d’Or winner distracts from the real problem of radical Islamism and the danger of an attack. However, the far-right leader agreed that today the striker of the Saudi club Al-Ittihad and former captain of Real Madrid has shown an “obvious complacency towards the most radical Islamism”.
In the wake of the storm it has unleashed, Darmanin has not retracted. In an interview with the BFMTV channel, the head of Interior pointed out that “if Mr. Benzema wants to demonstrate his good faith, he should be able to show it in a few minutes, in front of the 20 million people who follow him (in X, former Twitter), which cries in the same way for the death of the teacher (murdered a few days ago in Arràs)”. The origin of the accusations was, in fact, Benzema’s message in which he expressed solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and his silence after the death of the teacher.
Darmanin, who belongs to the far-right wing of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and is considered a candidate to succeed him in the Elysee in 2027, has toughened his draft of the new immigration law by allow the maximum period of administrative detention for illegal foreign criminals or Islamic extremists to rise to 18 months, up from three months.
Meanwhile, bomb alerts continue to disrupt life in France. Yesterday, 18 airports were affected and, once again, the Palace of Versailles. The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, reminded that those who communicate unfounded alerts are criminals, and can be sentenced to sentences of up to three years in prison and heavy fines.
