Rachida Dati on a knife edge

Rachida Dati wants to become the next mayor of Paris. It's her obsession. The more obstacles pile up in her path, the more the Minister of Culture accepts the transgression. By declaring herself, on Monday, July 28, as a candidate for deputy in the 2nd constituency of Paris, without waiting for the result of the Republicans' national commission, which preferred to invest Michel Barnier, she gave the finger to her former running mate in the 2009 European election campaign and reinstilled the poison of division on the right. It's hard to know if she's still a member of this party or has rallied to Macronie. The former disciple of Nicolas Sarkozy is now only working for herself.

Among the many adversaries she likes to create for herself, Rachida Dati also counts judges. Referred to the criminal court for "corruption" and "influence peddling" on Tuesday, July 22, because she is suspected of having engaged in illegal lobbying in the European Parliament in favor of Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of Renault-Nissan, in exchange for 900,000 euros in fees, the Minister of Culture counterattacked in Sarkozy-style. Denouncing a "procedure riddled with incidents," she attempted to put the financial public prosecutor, Jean-François Bohnert, at odds with the prosecution over which he has authority. Prime Minister François Bayrou had to remind the former Minister of Justice of what she should not have pretended to ignore: respect for the judicial institution is "a duty of state."

Protected by the President of the Republic and supported by the current Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, Rachida Dati is raising eyebrows on the left, but her case is also dividing the right, the government, the presidential party, and other parties in the central bloc. For some, she is an electoral asset not to be overlooked; for others, she is a dangerous arsonist ready to exploit all the populist motives of the time: distrust of judges, the press, the elites, and the "system." If passed, the "Paris-Lyon-Marseille" law , which modifies the methods of electing the mayors of the three cities and is currently being examined by Parliament, would allow her to contain the local barons who have opposed her Parisian rise since she herself took root in the ^7th arrondissement.

The free rein she has managed to carve out for herself by being both popular and disruptive is undeniable, but there are limits that must not be crossed. There is a hint of Trumpism in the way Rachida Dati is waging the political battle: a single truth, her own; threats against those who dare to question it, like those made against journalist Patrick Cohen on June 18, on the show "C à vous"; heavy artillery against judges... Preceding the 2027 presidential campaign by a year, the municipal elections next March will give a valuable indication of the tone of the political debate, while now a whole section of the right and the far right is also targeting the judicial institution and the rule of law.

Rendered ineligible for five years by her conviction at first instance in the case of the National Front's European parliamentary assistants, Marine Le Pen has just declared that in the event of dissolution and new legislative elections, she would nonetheless act as a candidate, with the intention of relying on her electoral base to exert maximum pressure on the electoral judge and the Constitutional Council. In the past, this kind of declaration triggered an outcry; this is no longer the case today.