First of all, let’s get one thing straight: I am not
the father of Rachida Dati’s new baby. Admittedly that disclaimer
might be superfluous, because of all the many names mentioned since
the birth of Zohra, mine is not yet among them. Still, it’s best to
get this on the record for reasons that will become clear.
Miss Dati is one of the several women that President Nicolas
Sarkozy, to please feminists and bring a whiff of modernity to
hidebound French government, picked for his cabinet after his 2007
election. With women newly holding cabinet positions from the
interior to finance to justice, and on through housing, health,
culture, and education, Sarkozy has prided himself on bringing more
women into high government office than any previous French leader.
The political correctness squad gave him double points for two new
faces in particular: Rama Yade, the Senegal-born state secretary
for human rights, and Rachida Dati, of North African immigrant
origin, as minister of justice.
But Sarkozy, for all his nervous energy and laudable attempts to
instill a new governing style, is very much in the traditional
French mold when it comes to women: he dotes and depends on them.
Like French leaders from 15th-century Charles VII on down to
François Mitterrand, he gladly submits to their influence. (He was
especially dependent on his second wife, Cécilia, for moral support
and counsel, vowing publicly, “She is part of me.”) And like many
of his predecessors, Sarkozy now is paying the political price of a
spot of girl trouble.
When Cécilia abruptly left him only months after his election,
he speedily courted and married Carla Bruni, model and pop singer,
on the rebound. Whether it’s an excess of testosterone, as one
biographer argues, or outsized emotional need, he likes to have
plenty of the opposite sex around. The little harem Sarkozy formed
in his cabinet immediately became known to irreverent observers as
the Sarko Babes. But he didn’t reckon with the inconvenience, in
the serious business of government, of those delightful feminine
qualities so celebrated in French boulevard farce: caprice, vanity,
and jealousy.
Rama Yade, a duskily attractive 32-year-old, is the youngest of
the Babes and the only black cabinet member. Initially touted by
Sarkozy as France’s Condoleezza Rice, Yade became his poster child
for ethnic diversity. But her inexperience, lack of tact, and newly
discovered political ambition soon made her a loose cannon. When
the Libyan weirdo Muammar Qaddafi made a state visit to Paris, she
embarrassed Sarkozy by trumpeting that France should not be a
doormat where Qaddafi could “wipe the blood of his crimes from his
feet.” And when Barack Obama was elected she regretted publicly
that, unlike the U.S., France’s political parties were prejudiced
against its ethnic minorities. True perhaps, but as the French
wisely say, not all truths are good to be spoken—especially if
you’re a cabinet minister.
The last straw for Sarkozy came when he asked Yade recently to
run for the insignificant European Parliament in next June’s
elections as part of his UMP party. “Non,” came her blunt
reply. That would be “like a forced marriage,” when what she really
wanted was an important political career in France. Sarkozy was
vocally disappointed by what he felt was his young protégée’s
betrayal. Her planned promotion to minister of European affairs is
now dropped.
“I’ve zapped Rama,” he reportedly told other cabinet members.
“She’s totally finished.” Today the French government’s token black
is in political limbo and Sarkozy’s judgment has taken a hit.
Yade had already been snubbed by a carom shot from another Sarko
Babe. When Sarkozy made his official visit to China in November
2007, she expected to go along to treat the vexed question of human
rights with Chinese officials, a subject on which France claims to
hold strong views. When she was pointedly excluded from the
delegation, Paris insiders were quick to conclude she was nixed by
her pushy sister in government—and rival for Sarkozy’s
attention—Rachida Dati.
DATI’S RELATIONSHIP WITH SARKOZY has had French tongues wagging
for years, and not only because he appointed her to head his
justice department despite her lack of any visible qualifications.
One of 12 children of poor Moroccan- Algerian parents, she had a
hardscrabble childhood in tough public-housing projects. After
managing to attend magistrates’ school and serving a brief stint as
a junior magistrate, she began bombarding Sarkozy with letters when
he was interior minister under Jacques Chirac. He finally agreed to
meet, and liked her well enough to give her a minor job in the
ministry. During his presidential campaign he made her a press
attaché. When Sarkozy and Cécilia vacationed in Vermont in the
summer of 2007, Dati, for reasons no one but they understood, went
along.
Cécilia left Sarkozy but Dati stayed. A striking, headstrong,
43-year-old brunette with a thousand-watt smile, she was on his arm
during a White House dinner, accompanied him to a World Cup rugby
match, was his partner at a state banquet in Morocco. He
affectionately called her “ma beurette,” friendly slang
for “my little North African girl.” Thanks to her looks and nouveau
riche taste for ostentatious luxury—designer pantsuits at the
office, glossy magazine covers in expensive dresses, fishnet
stockings and spike-heeled boots, spectacular gems on loan from top
Paris jewelers in the evening—the celebrity press couldn’t get
enough of her. For a while she was the brightest star in the French
political firmament, and it went to her head. On November 5 she
imperiously ordered Sarkozy’s minions to give her Obama’s cell
phone number, as if she were on a presidential level.
But Sarkozy altered his style. After months of public backlash
against his flashy ways, he dropped the ostentatious sunglasses,
the chunky wristwatches, the parties on friends’ yachts. Dati’s
fondness for the likes of Dior, Prada, and Vuitton clashed with the
sober new tone at the Elysée Palace. A newspaper tried to help by
airbrushing off her finger an imposing Chaumet ring worth an
estimated $20,000; that backfired when the ruse became known. And
Carla was not Dati’s friend. She let it be known that while showing
Dati around the official residence, they paused at the presidential
bed. “You would have liked to be in there, wouldn’t you?” Carla
teased, not altogether affectionately.
On cue, government sources began leaking exasperation over her
using plush executive jets for her frequent trips abroad—and
insisting that the French ambassador be on hand to welcome her at
all hours. Justice ministry insiders criticized her for needlessly
alienating lawyers and judges by forcing through judicial reforms
without the customary dialogue, and swearing at assistants during
temper tantrums. (In her first 18 months as minister, more than 20
top aides left in protest.) Trying to downplay his embarrassingly
glam minister, Sarkozy told his press service to “de-celebritize”
Dati. But she had one third-act feminine ploy left: pregnancy.
AFTER SHE ANNOUNCED PROUDLY last year that she was expecting,
but would not name the father because her private life was
“complicated,” every salon and dinner table in Paris echoed with
the question, qui est le père? The celebrity press had a
new angle as photographers chronicled her swelling form, which she
did nothing to conceal. She teased reporters with lines like “the
papa travels a lot,” and “I’ve invited him to dinner.” Even as
little Zohra was born January 2, names flew: Was her daddy a
well-known high executive at Gucci? The French sports minister? A
certain former Spanish prime minister (denied as “totally and
completely false”)? François Sarkozy, the president’s taller,
younger brother who visited her in the maternity clinic (“I’m the
wrong horse”)? Or had she resorted to anonymous artificial
insemination?
Hélas, we may never know, the only certitude being,
trust me, that it is not your faithful correspondent. But Sarkozy,
finally fed up with the Dati Show, called her on the carpet in late
January. She could either leave the government empty-handed or
leave for the European Parliament, and this time he wouldn’t take
non for an answer. As she prepares to head reluctantly to
that graveyard of political ambitions that is the phony parliament
in Strasbourg, she leaves Sarkozy a sadder, wiser man.
Still, he can rely on the ultimate Sarko Babe, Carla, to help
wipe the egg off his face after the humiliating failure of his
diversity gadget. It must be some comfort that his much younger
wife vows she has given up her man-eating ways that reportedly
included a string of boyfriends from Mick Jagger to Donald Trump.
“I no longer seduce because I love my husband,” she purred to a
magazine recently. “We don’t say much, we kiss.”
To help keep those home fires burning, Sarkozy has a new
feminine recruit named Julie. This 26- year-old personal trainer
specializes in shaping up the pelvic floor, i.e., the perineum.
Besides helping him lose weight and overcome his chocolate
addiction, the technique is claimed to improve other important
aspects of her client’s life. “Sexual relations are better if the
male perineum is in good shape,” explains the knowing Julie. One
can only speculate what beneficial effect this may have on France’s
steroidal president, and wish him many happy returns.
