As soon as I arrive, already somewhere else. Rachida Dati is not the type to submit to any duty of reserve. Holding such a lolling tongue, what a funny idea! The uses are good for the notables. The new Minister of Culture did not wait for her name to be mentioned by the Secretary General of the Elysée Alexis Kohler on January 11 to set up shop on rue de Valois. An hour earlier, she had taken Parisian parliamentarians and city councilors into her confidence. During this videoconference, the former Minister of Justice reassures his peers. She remains a member of the Republicans, as Eric Ciotti assured her. Two hours later, the boss of LR announced his exclusion from the party.
Paris is worth a little lie. The capital is his obsession. The minister has not unpacked her boxes when her mind is already wandering elsewhere. She announced this Wednesday on RTL her candidacy for mayor of Paris, after a simple official trip to the Château de Fontainebleau. The day before, Emmanuel Macron swore during his press conference that he had not discussed his local ambitions with her. Culture, nothing but culture. On the right, as in the majority, some disgruntled people see Rachida Dati’s exit as a “response” to the head of state. “She is angry, and tells him that it is in his interest to give her what she asks,” slips an LR hierarch. Both will have the opportunity to talk about it this Thursday in Clichy-sous-Bois (Seine Saint-Denis), during a joint visit to the Ateliers Medicis, a place dedicated to new artistic voices.
Amendment to the electoral law
This is how the “Dati privilege” emerges: a benevolence granted to behaviors that would not be acceptable elsewhere. The early display of local ambitions reveals its dispersion? We praise his frankness. His personal attacks indicate his ferocity? His sense of formula is praised. François Baroin can testify to this, the subject of a murderous tweet from the new minister after criticizing her rallying behind Emmanuel Macron. A former counselor theorizes: “She has a simple rule. When she starts to miss you, she immediately shoots her in the knee, that way we don’t come back.” To the wise…
The bulldozer is launched. He collected his first victory on Tuesday. Emmanuel Macron has launched the project of revising the PLM electoral law (Paris, Lyon, Marseille), so that the inhabitants of the three largest French cities can directly elect their mayor. The president of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly Sylvain Maillard will table a bill in the coming weeks, with a view to final adoption at the end of 2024. Rachida Dati is keen on this voting method, which she considers more advantageous for her future. . “An old refrain that the right has been repeating since its defeat in 2001,” people joke at City Hall. As early as October 2023, she spoke in full Paris council of her discussions with the President of the Republic on the subject, before making it known on Twitter.
A new voting method is good. Alliances are better. Rachida Dati wants to bring together the right and Macronie to dislodge the left in 2026. She knows how much the dispersion of votes contributed to her failure in 2020. The bulldozer, again. “I am a fan of the Sarko method,” she confided privately before her nomination. “We all come together in the first round. We make a big score and we create the dynamic for the second.”
“Condemned to remain in government”
Her entry into government is part of this strategy, as it places the minister in the presidential majority. And too bad for the Parisian Macronists, not very happy with this surprise arrival in the family. Move over, Rachida Dati is coming to share the Sunday chicken. “Dati is condemned to stay in government until the municipal elections, analyzes a minister. Now we are linked. There is no other solution for us than her in Paris, and she has no other solution that we.” An LR district mayor confirms: “Paris will be a very tough fight, Hidalgo is not dead. Who embodies except Dati? No one among the Macronists, any more than among us. It is a principle of reality.”
Therein lies the Dati strength. The minister became the only figure of opposition to Anne Hidalgo, with angry tweets and harsh expressions at the Paris Council. It has built a monopoly that few contest. Macronia is poor in charismatic leaders. The Parisian right, too. And since its two forces have little chance of winning separately…
“She loses all singularity by entering government”
There’s just one problem. Éric Ciotti is an opponent of Emmanuel Macron. The president of LR wishes to differentiate himself from the head of state to embody the alternation in 2027. The return of the right to the Elysée passes through this path. A Parisian alliance a year before the presidential election would look bad. It could finally make a splash and complicate Éric Ciotti’s Nice campaign against Macronist Christian Estrosi. This Tuesday, the Dati case was invited to the Republican Strategic Council. The deputy for Alpes-Maritimes hastened to calm things down. “Our choice is not dictated by the government. There is no evidence at this stage,” he explained in substance. An LR candidate facing Dati? Questioned on France 5, he assured Thursday evening that everything was “possible”, limiting himself to promising a presence of the Republicans in Paris, without further details. It is urgent to wait.
Two years separate us from the next municipal elections. An eternity in politics. Will Rachida Dati have succeeded in her transition to Culture? What state will Macronie be in? Will the right have survived the ordeal of the European elections? So many political choices will arise from the answer to these questions. Now is the time for simple predictions. An LR executive wonders: “By 2026, the party will no longer really be able to decide on many things. But Rachida Dati loses all singularity by entering the government. This could cause her to lose. Hidalgo becomes a “pirate” again “, Parisians like that.” The Parisian left would also like the minister to “die” from her promotion.
In the game of predictions, he is not the least legitimate. In October 2022, Emmanuel Macron is at the 100th anniversary of the Grand Mosque of Paris. Gérald Darmanin is there. The Minister of the Interior, the best informed man in France, surveys the elected representatives of the majority: “So Paris?” “We’ll see after the Europeans,” he was told. He doesn’t need to wait: “In any case, it will be Dati.”
.