Dati’s Undeclared Jewels Spark Political Firestorm

"The investigation opened following reports denouncing the possible offense of non-declaration of jewelry" to the HATVP "has been entrusted to the financial and anti-corruption brigade (BFAC) of the judicial police of the Paris police headquarters," the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Libération revealed the case last April: it emerges from Rachida Dati’s latest declaration, published by the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) in June 2024, that the minister has a patrimony of "some 5.6 million euros in the form of real estate in France and Morocco, current accounts, life insurance or savings products." For the French newspaper, the minister failed to declare 19 pieces of jewelry, for a total amount of 420,000 euros, held since 2017.

In May, Rachida assured France Inter that she had "nothing to regularize" in her asset declaration. "I have nothing to regularize. I have never been caught in default on any declaration. So it’s not today that it’s going to start," she said. The minister also intends to file a complaint for defamation against the journalist Laurent Léger, author of this article. He is a "close friend of Anne Hidalgo. [...] I’m used to it, I file a complaint," she added. The mayor of Paris is her longtime political opponent in the race for the municipality.