(Politico) A French senator on Wednesday called for Karim Benzema to be stripped of his French citizenship after Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin suggested the football star was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist party considered to be a terrorist group in several Middle Eastern countries.
“If the minister’s comments are true, we have to consider sanctions against Karim Benzema,” said Valérie Boyer, vice-president of the conservative Les Républicains party, in a statement on X.
Boyer said taking away Benzema’s Golden Ball — the highest individual award a professional football player can receive, which Benzema won in 2022 — could be a “first, symbolic sanction,” and suggested “the deprivation of his nationality” as a second punitive measure against the Franco-Algerian player.
