The French Minister of Culture, Rachida Datiannounced this Wednesday his resignation as a member of the Government to focus on the municipal elections that will be held in three weeks in France. In reality, the minister, who never hid her intention to run for mayor of Paris, has been campaigning for weeks and her departure from the Executive was a matter of time.
Dati is mayor of the VII arrondissement of Paris and already faced in 2020 the current leader of the capital, the socialist Anne Hidalgo. He will no longer run for election, after 12 years in charge. The polls are very close and give a slight advantage to the replacement from Hidalgo, Emmanuel Grégoire, who has the support of the rest of the left-wing parties. According to the latest survey by the Ifop institute, he has 32% of the voting intention in the first round, which will be held on March 15, compared to 30% for Dati. The second will take place a week later, on the 22nd.
Dati, who represents the conservative party Los Republicanos, has been very involved in the campaign for some time now, and has starred in highly viral videos in which she appears accompanying street sweepers in Paris or visiting areas where homeless people live.
In a statement, the French presidency thanked the minister for “the useful action,” which has been marred by several controversies. She is being investigated for corruption and influence peddling and will be tried for these crimes in September of this year.. She is accused of having received 900,000 euros between 2010 and 2012, when she was an MEP, from a subsidiary of Renault to do lobbying work in Parliament, something prohibited for elected officials. In addition, it is suspected that he did not declare his collection of high-end jewelry to the High Transparency Authority.
“The battle of my life is Paris”
For weeks now, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has been urging her to resign. “I have presented my resignation to Emmanuel Macron (…) I am very happy to be Minister of Culture, but the battle of my life is Paris,” Dati said this Wednesday on the set of the BFM network.
She was appointed Minister of Culture in January 2024, in the Government of Gabriel Attal. He is one of the few ministers who has survived the latest government changes, caused after the dissolution of the Assembly in July of that year by Emmanuel Macron. He is one of the most controversial political personalities in France, especially because he has no filters. She was Minister of Justice under Nicolas Sarkozy, when he won the presidential elections in 2007.
“I have decided to leave the Government before the municipal elections to dedicate myself fully to the campaign (…) I had some missions to finish, regarding the Louvre and its reorganization,” he stated on the aforementioned channel.
Rachida Dati announces that she is leaving the ministry a day after the resignation of the president of the Louvre, Laurence des Carsinvolved in controversy after the assault on the Louvre Museum last Octoberwhen four hooded men entered the art gallery and took eight crown jewels.
