Rachida Dati, Former French Minister, Sets Sights on 2022 Presidential Run

Rachida Dati swears that "her life has been a succession of battles"... Yesterday a Justice Minister, today she is the mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris. But before that, she was the LR candidate for mayor of the French capital.

This media outing was an opportunity for a family retrospective. We discover her birth into a working-class Muslim immigrant family. We learn how she attended a Catholic primary school. We know more about the cancellation of a marriage that was imposed on her, then her first confrontation with the high society circles of the capital... These reminders that are not trivial reveal a feminist, combative Rachida Dati, who shrinks from nothing and has slowly but surely climbed the ranks of French politics to land a position as Minister of Justice between 2007 and 2009, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, her "mentor".

At the next fateful deadline, she hopes to be the next occupant of the Elysée. She is already thinking about it. "She who has fought the French elite" and intends not to stop there. If last July, in a statement to Le Parisien, she said in a vague way that she had "a role to play" for this presidential election, this time the intention is clear even if she leaves the final decision "to her political family to choose a candidate for 2022".

In revealing this ambition to be a candidate for the presidency, she is putting forward her ideas. It is necessary to ensure that: "your cause advances, that you defend your values and a community of destinies, necessarily there comes a time when you say to yourself, especially when you see the state of the country, this battle, maybe I could lead it," said the former Justice Minister. Beyond her strength of character, which is her first trump card, Rachida Dati is betting on current events. She cites the many demonstrations shaking the country. She mentions the issue of rising unemployment. "We have high youth unemployment, the crime rate has exploded, an exponential debt".