Benzema has been in the international wilderness, not considered for UEFA EURO 2016 selection by Les Bleus manager Didier Deschamps, after being charged in connection with an alleged attempt to blackmail fellow France international Valbuena over a sex tape.

As the scandal lingers on, Benzema – preparing for a second successive UEFA Champions League final with defending champion Madrid – is growing frustrated by the 32 year-old Lyon winger.

"There's really something wrong with him! …It's all part of his story," Benzema told L'Equipe. "When I hear him say that he's ready to play with me again. To hear him at the beginning, I'm a scum, I threatened him, I scared him, all you can invent … And now he wants to play with me!

"He said he would not have lodged a complaint if he knew I was involved in the story. For more than a year and a half I'm his worst enemy, a bad guy, a thug, I have to be punished, dragged in the mud, my name and that of my family, in the dirt.

"It has been almost two years since I was forbidden to see my best friend [Karim Zenati], if not we go to prison, and he is quiet, but he must stop his crap, and I do not know why he keeps talking about me already.

"I am his enemy, I wanted to take money from him, he really has to stop inventing, it makes me mad to keep on lying! Sex tape, he just had to tell the truth about what really happened, and he would not have had all of this."