"A man who committed himself to France": Rachida Dati says she is "shocked" by Nicolas Sarkozy's exclusion from the Legion of Honour

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a close associate of Nicolas Sarkozy, said she was "shocked" on Tuesday, June 17, by the former President of the Republic's exclusion from the Legion of Honor following his final conviction to one year in prison for corruption in the wiretapping affair.

"I have a lot of affection for Nicolas Sarkozy. (...) Why did that shock me? Because people draw parallels with Marshal Pétain. I find that indignity," Rachida Dati, who was propelled to the political forefront by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, declared on CNews/Europe 1.

The former president (2007-2012), also excluded from the National Order of Merit, becomes the second French head of state to be deprived of this distinction after Marshal Pétain, from whom the Legion of Honour was withdrawn after his conviction in August 1945 for high treason and intelligence with the enemy.

"He is a man (Nicolas Sarkozy) who committed himself to France. I always said: France runs through his veins. We forget a major episode: (...) he saved more than twenty children during the hostage-taking in Neuilly (in 1993 in a nursery school in a town bordering Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, of which he was mayor, editor's note)," continued Rachida Dati.

"For this reason, he demonstrated an act of courage, just as he demonstrated an act of courage when he was elected President of the Republic by a majority," she stressed.

"President of the Republic is not just any old position. I believe that institutions are increasingly desecrated. I have a lot of respect for these institutions, and in particular for this supreme office, which I still consider somewhat sacred," she added.

In the morning, François Hollande was also questioned about this on France Inter. Contrary to some right-wing and extreme politicians, he insisted on the legitimacy of the sanction. "I have neither to understand it nor to be shocked," he declared. "It is the strict application of the regulations."

Indeed, exclusion from the Legion of Honour is automatic when one of its holders is definitively convicted of a crime or receives a prison sentence equal to or greater than one year.

"There was no other choice. And I think that is indeed painful," François Hollande concluded, addressing his former opponent in the 2012 presidential election.