Michel Barnier has thus maintained the same position as Gabriel Attal in relation to the Rachida Dati affair. By confirming the Minister of Culture in her post, the new Prime Minister is, like his predecessor, going against the Bérégovoy-Balladur jurisprudence, which wanted to force a minister indicted by the courts to leave his duties in the government. Under threat of criminal proceedings and called to the Rue de Valois in January, Rachida Dati shared a common point with Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, indicted in 1998 and called to the government in 2002, and with André Santini, indicted in 2006 and appointed Secretary of State a year later.
Since July 2021, the mayor of 7my The Paris district is accused of “passive corruption by a person entrusted with an elective mandate in a public international organisation”, “passive influence peddling by an agent of a public international organisation”, “concealment of abuse of power” and “concealment of breach of trust” in the context of the so-called “Carlos Ghosn” affair, named after the former CEO of Renault-Nissan, fugitive in Lebanon and subject of two international arrest warrants issued by the French justice system.
Did Mr Barnier take into account the content of the criminal file and the legal situation of the person concerned before proposing Ms Dati’s surname to the Head of State? The Prime Minister’s entourage did not respond to World on this point. THE Dati’s lawyers, Olivier Pardo and Olivier Baratelli, declined to comment. The noose could soon tighten around M.me Datí. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office is finalising its indictment with a view to its possible referral to criminal proceedings and will deliver it in a few weeks. Therefore, the political and judicial calendars should collide.
Renault-Nissan’s 900,000 euros
The investigating judges are focusing on the fees (900,000 euros excluding taxes for supposedly nine hundred hours of work) paid to Mme Dati as a lawyer, from 2010 to 2012, for Renault-Nissan BV, the Dutch subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan alliance. At this time M.me Dati was a member of the European Parliament, a substitute member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and lobbying activities are banned in the European Parliament.
In July, m.me Dati lost a round of proceedings before the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal. The court rejected an appeal by the minister’s lawyers to have the proceedings against her annulled and upheld an initial decision by the investigating judges on the statute of limitations.
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