Loyal Heart Forward Tongue

Rachida Dati: Moi? For President? Why not...

First, she intends to get elected as an MP in her local Paris constituency. Then, she wants to become Mayor of Paris, a well-established stepping stone to the Elysée Palace. After that…?

Asked if she can envisage becoming president one day, she prevaricates (“It’s complicated… it doesn’t work like that”). When pressed, she admits: “Why not, if I can do something for my country?

“I said I wanted to stand for parliament, and look at the revolt it has caused. Imagine what would happen if tomorrow I said I’m a candidate for the presidential election. Even if people say it is a good idea. Even if I am popular. Even if I’m afraid of nothing. France is ready for a woman president, but the French political class is not.

“Still, if someone had said a few years ago that someone from a poor, immigrant family, and a woman too, would become justice minister, everyone would have said 'impossible’.”

Dati was among a raft of women, some from ethnic minority backgrounds, catapulted into government posts when Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in 2007.

Nicknamed the Sarkozettes – the Gallic equivalent of Blair’s Babes with added glamour – they were symbols of what Sarkozy, himself an immigrant’s son, promoted as “open and diverse” government. Dati was held up to show what the disadvantaged could do if they set their minds to it.

Then the economic crisis struck and changed the political mood. Mr Sarkozy no longer wanted new and diverse, he wanted traditional and safe. Four and a half years on, most of these women have gone.

“Politics is about symbols, and in a time of crisis people return to what they know best,” says Dati. “But I’m not pessimistic about this. The women and the diversity will come back.”

From day one in the cabinet, Dati, the most loyal of Sarkozy’s foot soldiers, provoked unusual bile. Her chief of staff and several other office members resigned, suggesting she was impossible to work with. Her legal reforms sparked a strike by magistrates, and her hard-line proposals – including the jailing of 12-year-old delinquents – brought further opprobrium.

She took flak for her penchant for designer clothes and vertiginous heels. When she appeared on the cover of Paris Match wearing a Christian Dior dress, she was accused of getting too big for her own bottes and forgetting her roots.

Merry Farmer - The Loyal Heart

Derbyshire, 1192: Sir Crispin of Huntington’s love for his ex-fiancée, Lady Aubrey of Morley, is matched only by his hatred of the Derbywood Bandit. Unbeknownst to him, Lady Aubrey and the Bandit are one-in-the-same. Also unluckily for him, Aubrey has a crush on Ethan of Windale. When Ethan returns suddenly from the crusades Crispin must prove his love and loyalty and win Aubrey away from his arch rival.  Aubrey must continue her quest as the Bandit while helping Crispin summon the strength to use his power for good. But when a wild gamble throws Aubrey into Crispin's arms just as he learns the truth about the Bandit will his love survive or will he lose Aubrey to Ethan forever?             Aubrey pressed against the castle wall as rain and wind lashed her. It grated on her nerves that she had had to sneak out in the dead of night to meet with Ethan, just as it set her teeth on edge that all Ethan wanted to talk about was his grand design for disrupting the Council of Nobles. Rescuing her friends, rescuing her from marrying Crispin, were afterthoughts. She dashed across the courtyard and into the castle with a bitter smirk. Here she was, risking detection as the Bandit by dressing in chausses, when what she should really be wearing was her most low-cut kirtle. Maybe that would snag Ethan’s focus. 

            The castle had long since gone to bed and she was able to rush through the halls and to her room without being noticed.  She pulled the wet cloak from her shoulders, dropping it in the middle of the floor. Unbuckling the sword from her belt she tossed it on the bed, stripping off her wet Bandit clothes and changing into her nightgown with a scowl.

            A knock at the door startled her. 

            “Aubrey, it’s me,” Crispin’s baritone made the hair stand up on her neck.

            “Just a second.” She lunged to her wet clothes and pushed them behind a heavy chair, jumped towards the bed and shoved the sword under her pillows. A large damp spot stood out on the stones in front of the fireplace. There was nothing she could do about that except to keep Crispin from entering the room. She grabbed the robe that lay over the foot of her bed and threw it around her shoulders before answering the door.