December 7 – The French government has become embroiled in the Karem Benzema sex tape scandal, with prime minister Manuel Valls saying the Real Madrid striker “has no place” in the national team at next summer’s European Championship finals.
Benzema is one of France’s key players and both he and his legal team have said on numerous occasions that the striker is totally innocent and “played no part in any blackmail or attempted blackmail”.
French reports say he nevertheless faces charges of conspiracy to blackmail for allegedly playing an active role in pressuring national teammate Mathieu Valbuena.
“A great athlete should be exemplary,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls told French radio Europe 1. “If he is not, he has no place within the France team.”
Benzema’s involvement has not yet been fully determined but investigators who charged him in October believe he was approached by a childhood friend to act as an intermediary.
“If a minister was handed preliminary charges, he would no longer be part of the government,” Valls said.
Benzema’s laywer Alain Jakubowicz hit back : “What’s the prime minister doing about presumption of innocence? This case is being played out in the media in an absolutely scandalous way, prompting the prime minister to express himself on a case he knows absolutely nothing about.”
In 2010, Benzema was handed preliminary charges for soliciting an underage prostitute but was acquitted in a case that lasted more than three years and tarnished his reputation. His image was further dented last month when he spat on the pitch when the French national anthem was played at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium in a tribute to the 130 victims of the Paris terrorists attacks ahead of ‘El Classico’ against Barcelona.
Benzema denied he was being disrespectful.
“It’s shameful, it’s sickening that these stories are made up,” he said. “As the national anthem was being played, I was fully concentrating, thinking of the victims and their families, about my family and football. It’s deplorable that I’m being depicted as someone who has no respect for their country, and for those who lost their lives. All this has affected me, it hurts.”
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