Ms. Dati was questioned Friday morning on RTL about the front page and an investigation by the daily on Tuesday, claiming that she would have received more than 800,000 euros as an Orange lawyer while being a European deputy, between 2010 and 2018.
“That the Paris town hall uses this newspaper, since this journalist is a friend of Ms. Hidalgo, to be able to attack me on something legal, is that normal?” asked Ms. Dati.
“This newspaper, which is subsidized by the Paris town hall, which attacks Rachida Dati, is this ethical?” she added, wondering about a possible “conflict of interest”.
In a press release on the newspaper’s website, the management of Libération and its Society of Journalists denounced “direct and personal attacks” against the author of the investigation. They also considered the accusation of conflict of interest “as outrageous as it is unfounded”.
These attacks “seem to us unworthy of the position occupied by Rachida Dati, especially since the latter is responsible for state relations with the media and, as such, must be guarantor of press freedom” , protested Libération, led by journalist Dov Alfon.
“By calling into question the +ethics+ of Libération and its journalists with the sole aim of defending itself against the legal investigations targeting it rather than responding on the merits of our revelations, the Minister of Culture is stepping out of her role,” said hammered daily life.
On RTL, Ms. Dati contested this journalistic investigation. “I have a job, I was a magistrate, that’s how I became a lawyer, it’s authorized by law: you can be an elected parliamentarian and a lawyer,” she defended herself.
She also targeted Anne Hidalgo by asserting that “unlike the mayor of Paris” she did not live “on public money”.
Anne Hidalgo’s entourage reacted to the media, describing the comments of Ms. Dati, “obviously in dire straits”, as a “crude and missed counterfire to avoid talking about her numerous affairs and her indictment”.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Minister of Justice and former European Member of Parliament is indicted for corruption and passive influence peddling by a person vested with a public elective mandate since July 2021, in the investigation into contracts entered into by a subsidiary of Renault-Nissan, when Carlos Ghosn was its CEO.
As for Orange, Ms. Dati “does not deny having received 800,000 euros” from the telecommunications group, underlines Anne Hidalgo’s entourage, “which would suggest that Rachida Dati worked for private interests in parallel with her elected mandates “.
Shortly after her appointment on rue de Valois, the current mayor of the 7th arrondissement of the capital confirmed her intention to run for mayor of Paris in 2026.
