More than the order for Culture Minister Rachida Dati to stand trial for alleged corruption and influence peddling on Tuesday, July 22, it was her fierce attacks on the judges in response to the decision that stunned France's political class. "When you are a public official, when you are a minister, you don't attack judges. We are not Trump's America; we are the French Republic," said Clément Beaune, a former MP for Paris from Macron's Renaissance party, speaking on France 2 on Wednesday. Pierre-Yves Bournazel, the center-right Horizons party's candidate for the Paris mayoral elections, also criticized Dati, who will likely be one of his rivals in the race for city hall: "Dati's constant drama cannot be the alpha and omega of the Paris campaign," said Bournazel, who wants to "bring the project back to the center of the debate" and presents himself as a "bulwark against the Trump-ification of Parisian political life."
President Emmanuel Macron and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin spoke out in support of Dati, and their statements even provoked reactions within their own camp. "The fact that the president and the justice minister, both responsible for the proper functioning of the judiciary, rushed to the rescue of Ms. Dati, shocks all those for whom the promise of irreproachable ethics and the renewal of political practices heavily influenced their decision to join Emmanuel Macron in 2017," said Gilles Le Gendre, a former Renaissance MP for Paris. "A minister must leave the government when charged," Macron had said in 2017.
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