Rachida Dati, Justice Minister under conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy and indicted since 2021 for alleged corruption and abuse of power, is Emmanuel Macron's surprising and most controversial signing for the new government led by the young Gabriel Attal. Dati's appointment as cultural advisor this Thursday confirms Macron's turn to the right. It shows the will to continue the takeover offer to the most moderate sectors of the Republicans (LR), the sister party of the PP in France, to combat the extreme right of Marine Le Pen.
While he chooses moderate conservatives such as Dati and Catherine Vautrin in the social sector, Macron does without some of the left-wing ministers who rebelled against the adoption of the immigration law in December because they considered it too right-wing. And it keeps heavyweights in the government such as the head of economics and finance, Bruno Le Maire, and the head of the interior, Gérald Darmanin, unhappy with the appointment on Tuesday of Prime Minister Attal, who takes over as prime minister at 34, the youngest of the fifth Republic. Le Maire and Darmanin, also from LR, are among the candidates to succeed Macron in the 2027 presidential election.
The Elysee Palace has decided to announce the new government in two stages. Senior ministers are expected to meet foreign ministers this Thursday and Friday, the day of the new government's first Council of Ministers. Another surprising appointment is the appointment of Stéphane Séjourné, current leader of the liberal Renew group in the European Parliament and Macron's confidant, to the Quai d'Orsay, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Europe, replacing Catherine Colonna. Three of the most important ministries (Foreign Office, Economics and Finance and Interior) remain in men's hands. Also defense and justice. The 14 ministers announced include seven men and seven women.
Dati is a pure product of the French meritocracy that is now being questioned. She is the daughter of Muslim immigrants in a family of 11 siblings. His father was a Moroccan worker; his mother, an Algerian, who could not read. He worked from the age of 14 while studying. She was a judge between 2007 and 2009 and then justice minister under Sarkozy. Until now, she was the leader of the conservative opposition in the Paris Council, the fiercest opponent of the mayor, the socialist Anne Hidalgo.
Rachida Dati of the Republican Party on June 20, 2022 in Paris. SARAH MEYSSONNIER (Portal)
Like Sarkozy, Dati sees politics as a martial art. He doesn't bite his tongue and seeks close combat. He said of an employee and friend of Sarkozy: “He is a cynical facade.” He described the former conservative Prime Minister François Fillon, who was his boss in the government, as “untidy (…), self-centered, frustrated, jealous.” In the year In 2021, he described Macron's party, which united former members of the Socialist Party and the LR, as follows: “They are traitors to the left and traitors to the right.” Their only known loyalty is to Sarko, as they call him, and that is why the appointment was seen as a victory interpreted for the former president, who brings his part to the new government.
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Dati's appointment also confirms that the old doctrine that there can be no accused ministers has been finally destroyed. The judges are investigating her because between 2010 and 2012 she collected 900,000 euros from the automobile company Renault in her capacity as a lawyer, while at the same time she was a MEP. She has not yet been tried, so the presumption of innocence applies.
Dati replaces Rima Abdul-Malak in the culture department. The former minister attracted attention for her criticism of immigration law and called for the withdrawal of actor Gérard Depardieu from the Legion of Honor after a documentary was broadcast in which he uttered obscenities. Macron distanced himself from Abdul-Malak and said that Depardieu was a credit to France.
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