Rachida Dati

Rachida Dati
Member of the European Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office July 2009
Constituency	Île-de-France
Mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 March 2008
Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice
In office 18 May 2007 – 23 June 2009
President	Nicolas Sarkozy
Prime Minister	François Fillon
Preceded by	Pascal Clément
Succeeded by	Michèle Alliot-Marie
Personal details
Born	27 November 1965 Saint-Rémy, Burgundy, France
Nationality	French
Political party	UMP
Children	Zohra (b. 2009)
Alma mater	University of Burgundy Panthéon-Assas University

Rachida Dati (French pronunciation: ​[ʁaʃida daˈti]; 27 November 1965) is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament, representing Île-de-France. Prior to her election, she held the cabinet post of Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice. She was a spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy during the French presidential election of 2007. After his victory, Sarkozy appointed her to his Government on 18 May 2007. She was elected mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris on 29 March 2008.

Biography

Early life

Rachida Dati was born on 27 November 1965 in Saint-Rémy, Saône-et-Loire, to a Moroccan father, a bricklayer named Mbarek, and an Algerian mother, named Fatima-Zohra. She is the second child of twelve children in an impoverished family, and she spent her childhood in Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy.

Even though Dati was raised in a devout Muslim environment, she attended Roman Catholic schools. She studied at the University of Burgundy, where she received a master's degree in Economics, and at Panthéon-Assas University, where she received a Law degree.^[1]

Career

At the age of sixteen, she started working as a paramedical assistant. She then worked for three years as an accountant at Elf Aquitaine while at university.

After meeting Jean-Luc Lagardère in 1990, she entered the audit management team of Matra Nortel communication. She later spent a year in London at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, in the records management and archiving department. In 1994, she was an auditing supervisor and secretary-general of the bureau of urban development studies at Suez (then Lyonnaise des Eaux). From 1995 to 1997, she worked as a technical advisor at the legal management division of the Ministry of Education.

In 1997, she was admitted to the École nationale de la magistrature, a public educational institution which offers courses necessary to become a magistrate. Upon leaving in 1999, she became a legal auditor at the Bobigny tribunal de grande instance (high court). She went on to become judge for collective procedures^[2] at the tribunal de grande instance in Péronne and eventually an assistant to the attorney general of the Évry tribunal.

In 2002, she became Nicolas Sarkozy's advisor, working for him on an anti-delinquency project. In 2006, she joined the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. On 14 January 2007, she was named spokesperson for Sarkozy on the day he was chosen as UMP candidate for the presidential elections of April 2007. After Sarkozy's victory on 6 May 2007, she was appointed Minister of Justice. Her rationalization of the court system was publicly opposed by judicial professionals.^[3] On 23 January 2009 Nicolas Sarkozy announced that Dati would take the second position on the UMP candidate list for Île-de-France constituency in the European Parliament election in June 2009, to which she was elected.^[4] She left her post as minister after being elected as a European deputy.

Soon after she left the government, in summer 2009, she founded a consulting company called "La Bourdonnais consultant,"^[5] which she had to dissolve at the beginning of 2010 to be able to resume the profession of lawyer, which she had to do by special dispensation (like other former magistrates).^[6] She sits on the editorial board of the French version of the Huffington Post, where she will write a weekly column about women's issues.^[7]

On 9 February 2013, Rachida Dati announced she was a candidate for mayor of Paris in the 2014 local elections but she later withdrew because "the press has already chosen Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet".

Personal life

In September 2008, Dati announced that she was pregnant and would be a single mother. She revealed her pregnancy to a group of reporters who questioned her about mounting rumours. "I want to remain careful, because . . . I am still in the risky stage. I am 42", she was quoted as saying.^[8] Her daughter, Zohra, was born in early 2009. As the name of the father was not revealed, many names circulated in gossip magazines.^[9] One book claimed her father to be Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri, prosecutor general of Qatar, while other sources named Jacques Essebag, Henri Proglio, and José María Aznar.^[10]

However, in 2012, she started legal action against Dominique Desseigne, the chief executive of Groupe Lucien Barrière a casino market leader in France, Switzerland and Europe, to recognise paternity.^[11][12] In December 2012, a French court ordered Desseigne to undergo a paternity test to see if he fathered Dati's child.^[13] A French court decision of 7th Jan. 2016 ruled that Desseigne was indeed the father.^[14]

References

1. Remy, Jacqueline (2009). Du Rimmel et des larmes (in French). Seuil. p. 52.
2. Equivalent to bankruptcy courts in the U.S.
3. Kerdreux, Gilles "Mme Dati affronte un mécontentement croissant sur la carte judiciaire", LeMonde.fr 11 November 2007
4. France's Dati to quit government, BBC News Retrieved on 23 January 2009
5. François Labrouillère, "Rachida Dati crée sa société de consultants", Paris Match, 23 juillet 2009
6. e-TF1. "Dray devra repasser, le serment de Dati repoussé – Politique – TF1 News". Lci.tf1.fr. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
7. Renaud Revel, 'Rachida Dati: "Arianna Huffington est venue me voir à la mairie"', in L'Express, 24/01/2012
8. "Sarkozys Liebling Rachida Dati ist schwanger". Die Welt. 3 September 2008.
9. Lauter, Devorah (4 November 2012). "Rachida Dati 'had string of lovers in 2008’". The Daily Telegraph (London).
10. Samuel, Henry (5 February 2009). "Father of Rachida Dati's daughter Zohra is Qatar's prosecutor general Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri, book claims". The Telegraph (London).
11. Article de Jean-Michel Décugis et Aziz Zemouri dans Le point
12. Article de Stéphanie Marteau dans LeMonde.fr
13. "Victory for France's single-mother minister Rachida Dati as court rules billionaire businessman must have DNA test to find out if he is father of her child". Daily Mail (London).
14. "Dominique Desseigne est bien le père de Zohra Dati, confirme la justice". L'Express (Paris).