– Published on
Black suit, high heels, smile on his face. On January 7, 2009, at the Élysée, the cameras immortalized the return to work of Rachida Datathen Keeper of the Seals, just five days after the birth of his daughter by cesarean section. The image is striking, almost unreal for many mothers.
Very quickly, the media spoke of express maternity leave or from “flash maternity leave”. An Ifop survey for Sunday newspaper indicates that 56% of French people believe that it was wrong to resume so soon, with 60% of women against 51% of men. A majority of French people disapprove of Rachida Dati‘s very rapid return to work. Behind this scene, another story is playing out.
5 days after her cesarean: the express return of Rachida Dati to the ministry
On January 2, 2009, the minister gave birth
cesarean section at the Muette clinic in Paris. On January 7, she participated in the Council of Ministers, after a brief visit to her office at Place Vendôme. She walks a few dozen meters to the steps of the Élysée, very smiling, framed by a swarm of photographers, in a black suit and high heels.
Medically, a cesarean section remains a major abdominal surgery. The National College of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians (CNGOF) suggests a convalescence of several weeks, often 4 to 6 weeks, before intense professional activity. Rachida Dati will confide later, on M6 in the show An Intimate Ambitionthat she struggled to stand and was in a lot of pain. The gap between the body on D+5 and the triumphant photo is striking.
Why Rachida Dati’s express maternity leave escapes the Labor Code
For an employee, the maternity leave in France
is very strictly regulated. L’Article L1225-29
of Labor Code prohibits employing a woman for eight weeks around childbirth, including a mandatory six weeks after birth. The employee is also protected against dismissal during this period, a hard-won social right.
The members of the government do not fall into this framework. Their status is based onArticle 8 of the Constitution : they are appointed and dismissed freely by the President of the Republic, without employment contract or specific guarantees. Clearly, a minister can be disembarked overnight. In this context of possible reshuffles, the dazzling return of Rachida Dati looks less like a simple individual choice than a gesture under strong institutional constraints.
Caesarean section, public opinion and institutional violence: what the case reveals
At the same time, a survey by the Ministry of Health showed that 84% of mothers wanted leave longer than the regulatory 16 weeks, and only 4% took a shorter one. Several French feminist associations, such as the Chiennes de garde, fear that this “flash maternity leave”
serves as a pretext for employer pressure on employees to return more quickly.
Since then, the episode has been cited in reports and parliamentary debates as a textbook case, under the label Rachida Dati’s express maternity leave. For many actors in the social debate, it illustrates a form of institutional violence: a woman, at the top of the State but without protection of labor law, pushed to deny the needs of her body in order to remain in government. The image of this walk in heels, five days after a cesarean section, continues to weigh on the way France thinks about mothers’ work.
