It Wouldn’t Happen in the UK

 It’s typical. Just as I spot something I can blog about, the Times’ French Correspondent blogs it first. Still, as he probably has a readership of several hundred thousand and my loyal congregation consist mainly of my immediate family, I suppose he has the right to use the subject matter first.

It’s all about the French Justice Minister, Rachida Dati (pictured), one of Sarkozy’s hand picked ‘maidens’ with whom he filled several cabinet posts when he came to power. General consensus is that they are all incompetent but none more so than Rachida, but she seems to be a pretty shrewd political operator and her most recent stunt of returning to work 5 days after a caesarean, not only has the whole of France talking but probably means that she is unsackable, a fate she was heading for before she had a bouncing baby girl on the 3^rd Jan.

Now - I don’t intend to talk about her perceived incompetence. As she was a minor judge and is now the boss of all of France’s judges and I have yet to be called before the ‘beaks’ in France, I cannot comment, but nobody really gets to be even a minor judge without some degree of intelligence and common sense. It’s only when judges get old and grey do they lose their marbles – but she’s not at that stage yet – most certainly not. In fact she’s quite stunning but then again, good old Sarkozy does not go for plain women. Word is that when he was the Justice Minister (her post now) she fluttered her eyelashes and kept pestering him until he actually started taking her on official functions as his ‘escort’. The rest is probably down to good old lust.

And there is the story. Ms Dati is a single woman and refuses to say who the father of her new-born daughter is. There is enormous speculation about whether Sarkozy is the father. Not – the President, but his younger brother who visited her in hospital. Various other red-blooded males are also in the frame including the former Spanish Prime Minister but they are all declining the honour of admitting to fathering the child. 

Although the French press have it as a key political story, in the UK it would be a major scandal which would have every investigative reporter chasing every possible lead to uncover the father. In France, the privacy laws, which in the past have allowed Presidents to have mistresses who were widely known about and acknowledged, but not written about, prevent stories which are little more than polite speculation. In the UK, reporters would be following her every move and those of her many suitors but my money is on Sarkozy junior. I mean, what are big brothers for if not to pass on those gorgeous women they cannot date because they, themselves are already dating a supermodel?