Nicolas Anelka. Photo: Twitter.

British soccer star Nicolas Anelka believes the Jewish wife of newly appointed French Prime Minister Manuel Valls pressured the politician into voicing opposition to the striker’s use of the ‘neo-Nazi’ quenelle salute, he said in an interview published Friday.

“I think he was probably under pressure from his wife in the quenelle affair,” Anelka told France’s Metronews.

“I hope he will put as much energy into fixing the country as he did in fighting Dieudonné,” he added, making mention of the salute’s creator, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a French comic who is a friend of Anelka’s.

Dieudonné has been convicted of anti-Semitism, illegal in France, eight times.

Anelka was banned for five matches by England’s Football Association for performing the quenelle, described as an “inverted Nazi salute,” in December, after scoring a goal. He was later fired from British soccer team West Bromwich in March for “gross misconduct.”

Valls has been married to Jewish violinist Anne Gravoin since 2010. He called the quenelle salute “a gesture of hatred” and “an anti-Semitic gesture” at a press conference in January when he was still at his previous post of interior minister.

Anelka insisted in the interview that he is neither a racist nor an anti-Semite. Describing the quenelle as a racist gesture is like saying “all priests are paedophiles and all Muslims are terrorists,” he said. Anelka accepted that the gesture is “vulgar,” but argued that it is not inappropriate unless done outside a synagogue.