Ordinary sexism, forced marriage, bullying, complicated pregnancy… Rachida Dati’s life journey has not always been simple. This is what we learn in his book, The Confiscation of Power, published by Plon on November 21, 2019.
She retraces her life, recounting her successes as well as her professional tribulations. If, as Gala reports, the former Minister of Justice does not hesitate to reveal the numerous sexist remarks received from her male colleagues, she also testifies to her personal pain.
The former Keeper of the Seals had to fight to find a place in politics. The environment, still predominantly dominated by men, has in fact not given him any favors.
“Each time I changed mission or position, I started again with the same energy, the same desire to do. And, each time, I saw the same denigration reappear, sometimes, from the very people who give lessons of respect and openness to the whole world”, she indicates in her book before evoking a sexist joke made by Jean-Louis Borloo, former Minister of Ecology under Nicolas Sarkozy.
Rachida Dati also returned to her difficult pregnancy on the set of the show Morandini Live, broadcast on C8 on November 25, 2019.
“When I was pregnant, it was the greatest gift of life for me. But remember the dumpsters I took on myself. Was I defended and supported? No. J “I was the laughing stock of comedians, politicians, dinners in town,” she reports, her throat tight. “This pregnancy was complicated. It wasn’t easy, I never talked about it. I risked losing her. I had so many miscarriages. It was a challenge for me.”
The politician had to endure many other sexist “jokes”, even within her party. “The only one who had the merit of saying the same thing, but without trying to make people believe that it was humor, was Claude Guéant,” she wrote in her testimonial book. “As he passed me before a media appearance, he exclaimed: ”When we do interviews, it would be nice to wear less lipstick. The most terrible thing is that they managed to make me doubt myself,” she regrets.
Furthermore, Rachida Dati had to make sacrifices for her family, which could have cost her life…
Simple gossip led the politician to forced marriage. “Not constrained by my parents, but by social constraint,” she also confided on the set of Morandini Live, November 25, 2019. “We had a hard time with the fact that I was single at 25.”
As she explains in her book, the independent young woman that she was, stood out from her former environment. Then single and owner of a home in Paris, Rachida Dati was the subject of regular gossip: “I provoked rumors in the alleys of the City where my parents lived.” In order to put an end to her gossip, her parents then encouraged her to get married, Gala explains. “I finally gave in to rid them of what people will say,” explained the new Minister of Culture.
“I didn’t want to break away from my parents, from my brothers and sisters,” she assures Jean-Marc Morandini. She then marries “an Algerian” whom she has only known “for 3 months” and for whom she has no feelings, she notes in her story.
“I met him in August and I got married on November 14, 1992,” she reveals on C8. An extremely trying event for the young woman she was. The details she specifies demonstrate this.
Sad and depressed by this arrangement, Rachida Dati goes to the “shot” ceremony, as if to escape this reality. Although physically present, her mind is elsewhere.
She thought that this union, although nightmarish, would allow her to emancipate herself and finally live in peace. Unfortunately, the opposite happened: “I quickly understood that he intended to force me to live with him in Algeria.”
Already in 2015, her friend Catherine Poiret, guest on Laurent Delahousse’s show Un jour un destin broadcast on France 2 and dedicated to Rachida Dati, returned to this disastrous day: “She gave the impression that we were was taken to the slaughterhouse.”
To put an end to this situation experienced as a real nightmare by the politician, she decided, a month later, to request the annulment of the marriage: “I wanted to erase this moment from my life…”. The procedure was long and difficult. It was also not without emotion that the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris spoke about this difficult period at the microphone of Jean-Marc Morandini on CNews: “We took three years before obtaining this cancellation.”
And added: “When I say that I made sacrifices, it is not victimization (…). I even thought of the worst (…) It’s hard, we cry alone. are not subjects that lend themselves to confidence,” she admitted, on the verge of tears.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, joined Emmanuel Macron’s camp, to everyone’s surprise. Since Thursday January 11, 2024, she now holds the position of Minister of Culture.
The world of culture, which she now deals with, quickly reacted to her appointment. In a video shared on “Noooo”, she responded to a question from TF1 journalist Paul Larrouturou, who told her the news.
Her entry into Gabriel Attal’s government no one saw it coming, she who has criticized Emmanuel Macron’s policies so much will now have to defend. In June 2021, she described La République en Marche, now Renaissance, on France inter as a “party of left-wing traitors and right-wing traitors, which is nothing without Emmanuel Macron”.
