Rachida Dati’s Appointment as Culture Minister Sparks Racist Backlash

The French politician Rachida Dati, born in France in 1965 to an Algerian mother and a Moroccan father, is sometimes reminded of her Maghrebi origins. And she is often the target of racist insults. "Rachida Dati [...] is the little beurette who has climbed the ranks, who has succeeded," commented Yves Thréard, deputy editor-in-chief and editorialist of Le Figaro, on the set of the France 5 program "C dans l’air" on Monday, February 5. These remarks provoked strong reactions on social networks.

"In France, since your name is Rachida, you cannot be a model of success, courage and social advancement, no, you are a little beurette," reacts the jurist Lilia Bouziane on Instagram. A "white man over 50 allows himself a form of paternalistic, sexist and a bit racist condescension to talk about a French woman politician," indignantly Roze Ameziane, president of the association Mouvement pour l’émancipation des territoires, in a video posted on the X platform.

She will add that the word "beurette" is insulting. "The word beurette is insulting, stigmatizing towards a minister, and more generally towards all women of Maghrebi immigrant origin. [...] Beurette is a derogatory term that means vulgar woman, a word that draws its origin from a colonial and orientalist fantasy that fetishizes and sexualizes Arab women," she explains.

The France Insoumise (LFI) deputy Antoine Léaument denounces, for his part, "racist" and "sexist" remarks that "have no place on a television set."