When Rachida Dati is called to the stand to pronounce her last words, at the end of her corruption trial, Monday September 28, the hearing has been open for a little over twelve hours. The defendant waited on a folding seat, almost curled up, with her back to the public, her gaze towards her defense. When she appears in front of the desk, facing the Paris criminal court, the mayor of the 7th arrondissement, who is requesting her reinstatement in the judiciary, turns for the first time in six days of hearing to the duo of prosecutors from the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF).
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In the morning, the representatives of the PNF called for his conviction for the alleged acts and heavy sentences against him: four years in prison, including two years with adjustable sentences, accompanied by an additional sentence with provisional execution of five years of ineligibility, ban from public service and the exercise of the profession of lawyer, that is to say with immediate application. Requisitions that his defense described as “civil death” on Thursday afternoon.
So when Rachida Dati speaks in turn, she also chooses to respond to the PNF magistrates. “I have been in your place,” she begins. “I have never been contemptuous, never arrogant, nor empathetic. I simply tried to understand, to take certain situations into account.” Her voice quavers and stops, betraying the emotion that takes hold of her. “The strength of the judiciary is not to make the law, it is to move it forward, and to move it in the right direction,” she says.
“I was called a liar, a manipulator”
Rachida Dati then moves on a more personal level. A step aside that she had refused to take until now: “As soon as I talk about my daughter, I am told that I am victimizing myself.” “These requisitions are not legal,” declares the defendant. A phrase that she repeats several times during this developed speech, despite the late hour of the evening. But she has a lot to say to the PNF: "You said this morning that I had the spirit of profit: what condescension, what denigration! Yes, I am working so that my eight sisters are free.
“Yes, I earned money because I wanted to remain independent of politics.”
Rachida Dati
before the Paris criminal court
“So they caricature me. For Rachida Dati everything is always suspect, never virtuous,” she quips, speaking of herself in the third person. “There are questions we ask that will never be asked of others. Isn't she a liar? Does she have real diplomas? What is her relationship to money?" "I have been called a liar, a manipulator, a greedy person", she castigates. "At what moment of grace was it said that I had skills?" "Lucre, greed, manipulator", she mocks, under her breath.
“Greed, I am far from it, Mr. Prosecutor,” continues Rachida Dati. “You say that I have soiled the lawyer’s robe, the magistrate’s robe. The dress I wore was by Simone Veil. And when I took the oath, mother was in chemotherapy, she could neither read nor write,” she adds, in a voice still contained by emotion.
“Your requisitions don’t scare me”
For Rachida Dati, these requisitions “consist of severe humiliation”. “I clearly understood that my reintegration among you posed a problem for you, Mr. Prosecutor,” she continued. Lucre, greed? You are next. We are not in the debate, we are in the denigration, the ignorance."
“I have always been in the fight because I want to be respected.”
Rachida Dati
before the Paris Criminal Court
“Your requisitions do not frighten me, because I believe in life, in law, in justice, in the rule of law”, assures the defendant, who asks the court “nothing other than to rule in law”. “Don’t judge my life, my brothers and sisters, what people say about me, there are more than 100 books that have been written,” she implores. Before concluding: “My only consolation is that my parents are not there to see where I am today.” The former Minister of Justice will be decided on his fate and his future on January 21, 2027 at 10 a.m., the date on which the court will render its decision.
