Paris (AFP)

Adulated in Spain, long controversial in France, the star striker of Real Madrid Karim Benzema dragged his image of "bad boy" and his legal disputes like a ball, before treating his return to the France team, between altruism, talent intact, efficient and unconditional supporters.

Recalled to everyone's surprise before the Euro last summer, Benzema is going through a mixed period.

Sportingly, he is probably experiencing the best period of his career at 33;

but outside the lawns, he remains prosecuted for "complicity in attempted blackmail" in the case of the sextape of Mathieu Valbuena, whose trial opens Wednesday in Versailles.

An exceptional talent but an image long dragged of a bad boy, it is all the ambivalence of the former Lyon player, which leaves no one indifferent.

"Benzema is an idol. He also helps young people, he is close to young players," recently noted the new Madrid-born Eduardo Camavinga.

"He's a good guy, he's quiet, + good delirium +, he has integrated well into the group", had slipped mid-June Kylian Mbappé, with whom he appears all smiles in selection.

Despite a polished technique, an altruistic style of play and a well-filled trophy cabinet (four French championships with Lyon, three Spanish championships and four Champions Leagues with Real), Benzema has long struggled to get rid of a image of a hothead, stuck between his collection of racing cars, his luxury clothes and his dating.

Because it is his loyalty to his childhood friend in a working-class district of Bron (a suburb of Lyon), Karim Zenati, which earned him his troubles in the "sextape" affair.

Since his police custody, which had the effect of a bomb in 2015, Benzema is suspected of being involved in an attempt to blackmail his ex-teammate Valbuena over a video of a sexual nature, which he said. refutes.

- A "masquerade" -

"Here is finally + vamonos + (let's go, Editor's note), that the masquerade is extinguished forever", he reacted when the date of his trial was set, from his Instagram account followed by more than 42 million people.

Far from his usual media silence and the image of a peaceful father of a family that he displays in his "stories" on social networks, Benzema unleashes passions in France, rattled between the love of his supporters and the hatred that he devotes part of the political spectrum, in particular to the extreme right.

His involvement, direct or not, in various affairs, still sticks to him sometimes.

With Franck Ribéry, the striker trained in Lyon was thus associated with "the Zahia affair".

Returned to the criminal court for "solicitation of a minor prostitute", he was however released in January 2014, like Ribéry.

Karim Benzema and Franck Ribéry, here during a training session for the Blues at Clairefontaine on August 29, 2011 will be involved in the Zahia BERTRAND GUAY Affair AFP / Archives

In July 2014, his then agent, Karim Djaziri, accompanied by Zenati, was accused by the daily L'Équipe of having "attacked" some of his journalists in Ribeirao Preto, the base camp of the Blues at the World Cup in Brazil.

- Smiles and thumbs up -

The sextape affair put a stop for five and a half years to the international career of Benzema, not selected for Euro-2016 because of his legal situation.

Didier Deschamps "gave in under the pressure of a racist part of France", commented the striker to the Spanish newspaper Marca, a flamethrower outing that has long haunted the coach, whose Breton residence was shortly vandalized shortly thereafter with a tag calling him "racist".

Since his surprise recall before the Euro, Benzema has turned into a prolific attacker (6 goals in 11 matches) and generous, both with his partners - as when he offers the ball from the penalty to Mbappé for the equalizer against the Belgium in the semifinals of the League of Nations - only with the photographers, to whom he distributes smiles and thumbs up.

The happiness of Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema with the League of Nations trophy won by France in front of Spain in Milan, October 10, 2021 FRANCK FIFE AFP / Archives

The former ban, whose name is regularly chanted by supporters of the Blues, seems flourished despite the legal clouds that remain above his head.

"I'm not taking (things) in + banned or not banned + mode," he said on October 8 on M6.

"There were choices. I stayed at the club, it allowed me to work well, to come back stronger, with the French team still in the lead."

© 2021 AFP