Rachida Dati Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Rachida Dati
Official portrait, 2024

Minister of Culture
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 January 2024
Prime Minister	Gabriel Attal Michel Barnier François Bayrou
Preceded by	Rima Abdul Malak
Minister of Justice
In office 18 May 2007 – 23 June 2009
Prime Minister	François Fillon
Preceded by	Pascal Clément
Succeeded by	Michèle Alliot-Marie
Mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 March 2008
Preceded by	Michel Dumont
Councillor of Paris
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 March 2008
Constituency	7th arrondissement
Member of the European Parliament
In office 14 July 2009 – 1 July 2019
Constituency	Île-de-France

Personal details
Born	(1965-11-27) 27 November 1965 (age 59) Saint-Rémy, France
Citizenship	France • Morocco
Political party	The Republicans (2015–2024; since 2025)
Other political affiliations	Union for a Popular Movement (2006–2015) Independent (2024–2025)
Spouse	Unknown (m. 1992; annulled 1995)
Children	1
Alma mater	University of Burgundy (MAEs) Panthéon-Assas University (LLB)
Occupation	Lawyer • Magistrate • Politician

Rachida Dati (born 27 November 1965) is a French politician, lawyer, and judge. She has been the Minister of Culture since January 2024. She serves in the governments led by Gabriel Attal, Michel Barnier, and François Bayrou. Before this, she was the Minister of Justice from 2007 to 2009 under Prime Minister François Fillon.

Dati is a member of The Republicans (LR) political party. She was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2019. There, she represented the Île-de-France region. She also worked as a spokesperson for Nicolas Sarkozy during his 2007 presidential campaign. After he won, she was appointed to the French Government.

In 2008, Dati was elected as the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris. She also joined the Council of Paris that year. In the 2020 Paris municipal election, she ran for Mayor of Paris but did not win. After the election, she became the leader of the opposition group in the Council of Paris.

Early Life and Education
Starting Her Career
Political Journey
Personal Life
Awards and Honors
Images for kids
See also

Early Life and Education

Rachida Dati was born on 27 November 1965 in Saint-Rémy, Burgundy, France. Her father, M'Barek Dati, was from Morocco and worked as a bricklayer. Her mother, Fatima-Zohra, was from Algeria. Her parents moved to France in 1963. Rachida was the second of eleven children in her family. She grew up in Chalon-sur-Saône.

Dati attended Catholic schools. She studied at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, where she earned a master's degree in economics. She also studied at Panthéon-Assas University in Paris, where she later received a law degree.

Starting Her Career

When she was sixteen, Rachida Dati began working as a maid and a paramedical assistant. While attending university, she worked for three years as an accountant at a company called Elf Aquitaine.

Dati tried to study medicine but later focused on economics. In 1990, she joined the audit management team at Matra Nortel communication. She also spent a year in London working at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 1994, she worked as an auditing supervisor at Suez. From 1995 to 1997, she was a technical advisor at the Ministry of Education.

In 1997, Dati was accepted into the École nationale de la magistrature. This school trains people to become judges and magistrates. After graduating in 1999, she became a legal auditor at a high court in Bobigny. She then became a judge in Péronne and later an assistant prosecutor in Évry.

Political Journey

In 2002, Rachida Dati became an advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy. She worked with him on a project to fight crime. In 2006, she joined the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. On 14 January 2007, she was chosen as a spokesperson for Sarkozy's presidential campaign.

Minister of Justice (2007–2009)

After Nicolas Sarkozy won the election on 6 May 2007, he appointed Dati as Minister of Justice. This made her the first politician from a North African immigrant background to hold such an important government position in France. She introduced changes to the court system, which were seen as very ambitious.

On 23 January 2009, Sarkozy announced that Dati would be a candidate for the European Parliament election in June 2009. She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Île-de-France region. After her election, she left her role as Minister of Justice.

After leaving the government in 2009, Dati worked as a junior judge and assistant prosecutor. She also started a consulting company. Later, she became a lawyer. She writes a weekly column about women's issues for the French version of the Huffington Post.

Member of the European Parliament (2009–2019)

As a member of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, Dati worked on important committees. She served on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. She also worked with delegations that focused on relations with countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

In the Parliament, Dati was a main speaker on topics like fighting terrorism. She worked on ways to prevent young Europeans from joining terrorist groups. After the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015, she wrote a report on preventing radicalization. This report was approved by the Parliament in November 2015. Her work also included looking at prison systems in the European Union. She also sought solutions for the migration crisis.

Local Politics Career

Rachida Dati has been the Mayor of the 7th district of Paris since 2008. She is also a member of the Council of Paris. In 2013, she announced she would run for mayor of Paris in the 2014 local elections. However, she later decided not to run.

In early 2019, Dati announced her plan to run again in the Paris municipal election in 2020. Since 2020, she has been leading her party's group in the Council of Paris.

Minister of Culture (2024–Present)

On 11 January 2024, Dati returned to national politics. She was named Minister of Culture in the government led by Gabriel Attal. Because of this, the president of Les Républicains party, Éric Ciotti, announced her exclusion from the party.

She kept her position as Minister of Culture on 21 September 2024 in the government of Michel Barnier. She also remained in this role on 23 December in the government of François Bayrou.

Personal Life

Rachida Dati was briefly married in November 1992. The marriage was annulled in 1995.

In September 2008, Dati announced that she was pregnant and would be a single mother. Her daughter was born in January 2009. In 2012, she started legal action to confirm the father of her child. A French court ruled in January 2016 that Dominique Desseigne was the father.

In November 2016, the BBC included her in their list of 100 Women. This recognized her as a trailblazer for Muslim women and minorities in France.