The complaint filed in mid-January by Karim Benzema against Gérald Darmanin was dismissed on February 15. The footballer denounced the minister’s comments on a supposed “notorious link” between him and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Karim Benzema had placed Gérald Darmanin in his sights by filing a complaint against the Minister of the Interior. But the complaint filed in mid-January, which denounced “defamation” and false statements by the minister who claimed that the football star had a “notorious link” with the Islamist organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, was dismissed this February 15.
The Requests Commission of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the only jurisdiction capable of judging a minister in office, “notes that Mr. Benzema’s complaint relates to comments which do not attribute to him any facts of a nature to undermine his honor or his consideration” indicates the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Rémy Heitz, in his press release. The court decision therefore mainly concerns the reason given in the complaint, in particular the defamatory remarks and their capacity to harm the honor of the footballer, more than on the merits of the case. It is specified that the commission’s decision “is not subject to any appeal” for Karim Benzema.
The affair between Karim Benzema and Gérald Darmanin began in October 2023, during an appearance by the Minister of the Interior on CNews. On set, the minister had criticized the former Real Madrid striker for “a slow drift of positions towards a hard, rigorous Islam, characteristic of the Brotherhood ideology consisting of disseminating Islamic norms in different spaces of society, notably in the sport.” Gérald Darmanin said he based himself on a series of facts as a clue – dissemination and promotion by the 36-year-old player on social networks of Islamic norms and practices of Islam, the fact of not singing La Marseillaise during his matches with the French team or even a photo with an imam from Meaux raided in the Samuel Paty affair -, but had not provided any factual proof.
In his registered complaint, Karim Benzema firmly and repeatedly denied any link with the Muslim Brotherhood. He also denounced a “political instrumentalization” of his person and a form of “petty [and] petty political opportunism”
Concretely, Karim Benzema criticized Gérald Darmanin for having made “inexact and more likely false accusations against him, but in any case made on purpose”. The footballer felt he served as an ideal target because he was considered a “symbol” of the “youth of the cities, seen as immigrants, Muslims, hostile to France and anti-Semitic”, a label in which “we have locked him up and for a long time” and which he rejects, reports Le Parisien.
The 2022 Ballon d’or added in its 90-page complaint, 10 of argumentation and 80 of annexes, that Gérald Darmanin’s accusations of an alleged link with the Brotherhood organization led to an “outburst of violence” against him and that of his family. Me Hugues Vigier, lawyer for Karim Benzema, returned to this “terrible violence” and the consequences of the minister’s declarations on the daily life of the football star, who left to live and work in Saudi Arabia, at the microphone of BFMTV on the 17th. January. The council recalled that Saudi Arabia has considered the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization since 2013 and that Gérald Darmanin’s words had the effect of “endangering” Karim Benzema’s family. “My children have been accused of having a terrorist father,” the footballer wrote in his complaint.
Beyond the reproaches, Karim Benzema denounced the accusations made by Gérald Darmanin and especially the “indecent hypocrisy” of the minister. Gérald Darmanin’s statements were made in reaction to a tweet by the footballer on his support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip published only a few days after the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. The minister then highlighted the lack of support expressed for the Israeli victims before asserting the existence of a link between Karim Benzema and the Muslim Brotherhood. In his complaint, the footballer pointed out that the strong man from Beauvau pointed the finger at him for having supposed links with the Muslim Brotherhood, but did not attack the Qatari power “whose proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood is in hope indeed notorious” and who participated in the negotiations and worked with France on the fate of the Hamas hostages. All while recalling that he “made the choice” to live in a country where the Muslim Brotherhood is considered terrorist.
Karim Benzema and his lawyer announced shortly after the statements of Gérald Darmanin to file a complaint against the minister in a “hot” reaction according to Mr. Hugues Vigier. The decision to file a questionable and on the verge of being dismissed complaint ended up being imposed in December when the minister confirmed his comments and reiterated his accusations against the footballer. The Minister of the Interior then indicated that he was not aware of a complaint being filed. “If I don’t file a complaint, he will then be able to laugh in front of the media saying ‘you see, what I said is true'”, the football star told his lawyer according to the latter’s statements on RMC. “It is Gérald Darmanin who makes the accusation and it is up to him to prove his words. Obviously, he does not have, he will not have and he has never had a single element,” declared Me Vigier who considered “quite worrying” that the Minister of the Interior “[is] not damned to know that there is no, and that there has never been any link between Karim Benzema and the Brothers Muslims.”
