Female, immigrant background - a "no, no" for some French

Beleaguered Sarkozy ally is heroine on mean streets

Justice Minister Rachida Dati comes from an immigrant family. Now the elite is out to stop her

Jason Burke in Chalon-sur-Saone
Sunday July 22, 2007
The Observer


Bernadette Pelger leans out of her window to curse 'the gendarmes, the drug-dealers, the kids who make all the noise at night, the fights' - in short, all the things that make her life on a council estate on the outskirts of a poor central French city a misery. 'Let's hope Mme Dati, madame le ministre, doesn't forget where she comes from,' the 75-year-old housewife says. 'She should come home and sort it all out.'

Dati is the new Minister of Justice - madame le ministre - and she grew up here in the rough suburbs of the Burgundy town of Chalon-sur-Saone. Appointed by the new right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy two months ago, Dati, daughter of Arab immigrants, and, at 41, astonishingly young for a French politician, smashed a breach in the overwhelmingly white, male and bourgeois political establishment. Last week, however, it became clear that the establishment was fighting back.
'Rachida Dati is paying the high price of being the first woman from a North African immigrant background to be appointed to such a high governmental post,' said a spokesman for SOS Racisme, a campaign group. Its president, Dominique Sopo, agreed, denouncing 'resistance and rank-closing by a French elite of white middle-aged men'.

First came the highly publicised resignation of her white, male, elite-educated chief counsellor, for 'personal reasons'. Then came the acrimonious departure of half her white, male, elite-educated private office amid allegations she was 'difficult' and 'authoritarian'. Finally, timed to coincide perfectly with Dati's first major speech in parliament, came the disclosure that two of her 11 siblings were on trial for drugs offences. The suspects as source of the tip-offs were not among the opposition Socialist party, discomfited though it might be by Sarkozy's appointment of far more ministers or advisers from immigrant backgrounds than successive left-wing administrations managed, but senior figures within Dati's UMP party.

The disclosure that one brother, 34-year-old Jamal, faced a second conviction for dealing heroin was particularly wounding, as the legislation that Dati is piloting imposes a minimum sentence for repeat offenders. 'That was a low blow,' one French MP told The Observer last week. 'And it's clear where it came from. But then that's politics, especially French politics.'

Sarkozy, whose wife is a close friend of Dati's, was forced to issue a call to order. In one speech the President, underlining his confidence in Dati's ability, said she had an obligation to succeed 'not simply in my eyes, but in the eyes of every child in France'. In another speech he spoke of his protegee's 'remarkable life story'. 'My support base is the French people, a popular support,' Dati told a radio interviewer. Asked about her brothers, she said 'every family has its tough times'. 'Tough times' Dati has known, and her remarkable story touches many of the most problematic issues confronting France today: the integration of large communities of North African origin. 'If she had been representative of poor Catholic farmers in the middle of the country, she would not have attracted all the hassle she's getting now,' says one aide.

Dati's father was a Moroccan-born mason, one of the hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers brought over to help with postwar reconstruction who stayed on; her mother was an illiterate Algerian farm girl. No 13, Rue Henri Dunant, where the future minister grew up, is part of a grey, low-rise council estate. In the Sixties, France parked the bulk of its immigrant workers and their families in small flats built on the periphery of their major towns. Today, locals in Chalon-sur-Saone say, the situation remains the same. 'We are the only French family in this block,' said Pelger, who lives at no 20. 'The rest are all foreigners. Some of them are nice people. Some of them aren't.'

Mustafa Ach, 70, knew the Datis. 'A very pleasant family,' he said last week. 'Rachida used to play out on the grass with the other kids. She was just like the rest of them. Now we watch her on the television. We are proud of her.'

Dati's desire to escape from the vandalised blocks came early on. Money earned as a check-out girl, in door-to-door make-up sales or as a home help was reinvested in her economics degree. Soon after graduating, she secured a meeting with the then Minister of Justice and a job as an accountant. Seven years later, on the advice of another mentor, Simone Veil, the former minister and Holocaust survivor, she moved into law, working during the day and studying at night. A swift rise up the judges' ranks and pushy ambition brought her to the notice of Sarkozy, who made her an adviser, his spokeswoman during this year's election campaign and then Minister of Justice.

It has been a tough start. In Dati's first week, a mother stabbed the judge in a custody case in Metz, prompting a judges' strike. A week later, with Sarkozy demanding a review of court security, a man shot himself dead in the dock on being found guilty of abusing his daughter. Last week, a criminal escaped from a Cote d'Azur prison in a helicopter.

There is fierce resistance among judges, bureaucrats and local officials to plans to rationalise France's antiquated court system. 'Winding the magistrates up can be a good thing,' said Bruno Thouzeillier, of a judges' union, 'But the problem is the speed at which it is being done. Dati has to keep going forward to keep the momentum and that causes problems.' And Dati's ministry is not like others. 'She is about the only minister who is not obeyed by those over whom she is meant to have authority,' said one senior judge. 'We are independent in every sense of the word.'

Dati should be able to weather the storm for the moment. She is regularly voted the most popular right-wing politician in France. And on the harsh streets of her home town she is a heroine. 'She is beautiful and she is very important now,' said Fatima Belala, an 11-year-old playing outside the small house where Dati's father lives. 'I want to be like her when I grow up.'