“Mr. Benzema has, as we all know, notorious links with the Muslim Brotherhood.” Pronounced by the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, this sentence accusing the footballer Karim Benzema of links with the Islamist organization of the Muslim Brotherhood quickly caused controversy. An accusation which follows a publication on spare neither women nor children.
Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1/ CNews/ Les Échos, Jordan Bardella returned to the subject. The president of the National Rally reiterated his comments on Karim Benzema, reaffirming that the former French international, who now plays in Saudi Arabia, is “a fellow traveler of Islamist ideology”.
“There are silences that speak volumes”
“I sparked a little controversy a few weeks ago by indicating that Karim Benzema was a fellow traveler of Islamist ideology. I stand by my words. What we criticize Karim Benzema is not so much in what “he said what he didn’t say,” says Jordan Bardella, criticizing the lack of conviction of the footballer after the Arras attack, during which Dominique Bernard, a French teacher, was killed. A silence that Gérald Darmanin had also criticized, who assured BFMTV that he would withdraw his remarks if Karim Benzema “tweeted” to “also mourn” the death of the teacher.
“When we don’t have a word, nothing to take offense, to condemn the despicable terrorist attack and the slaughter of a French professor on the territory of the French Republic in Arras, when we don’t have a word for the children, women, old people, Israeli civilians who were massacred, kidnapped, beheaded, killed, murdered by Hamas terrorists and who come like a flower a week later to make a tweet taking offense at civilians who are bombed in Gaza, there are silences that speak volumes,” stressed Jordan Bardella.
“While we are talking about an expatriate Islamist, we are not talking about Islamists who are on French territory”
For the president of the National Rally, the fact that “Karim Benzema refused to sing the Marseillaise in the French team, that on several occasions, [il] was caught in the act of association with Islamist ideology, when he was photographed and he took a photo arm in arm, all smiles, with an imam who was raided the same morning, when he likes on social networks the post of an athlete who is delighted with the attacks and the beheading of Samuel Paty, when he says that he is happy to go and play in a Muslim country, I say it again, he is a companion road of Islamist ideology.”
Jordan Bardella also criticized the attitude of Gérald Darmanin, which he describes as a “gigantic diversion”. “I am not fooled. Because while we are talking about an expatriate Islamist, we are not talking about Islamists who are on French territory. I will not fall into the trap of Mr. Darmanin,” he said. added, comparing the Minister of the Interior to “a magician, it’s Gérald Majax who pulls the Karim Benzema rabbit out of his hat thinking that everyone is going to get involved in the controversy”, concluded the president of the National Rally at the microphone of the Grand Rendez-vous.