Rachida Dati’s Moroccan Roots: French Minister’s Secret Escape to Casablanca

Last summer, Rachida Dati had spent her vacation in Morocco. The French Minister of Culture had been spotted in Rabat where she had visited several tourist sites and tasted Moroccan specialties in a renowned restaurant in the coastal town of Harhoura. "We come to Morocco as if we’re coming home. That is to say, for example, I can leave on a Friday evening, I take Zohra and I arrive in Casablanca. We’re in my father’s house, we’re at peace," she confided during a filmed interview in the Momo Morning Show on Hit radio, broadcast six months ago on the station’s YouTube channel.

Contrary to France where she preserves her private life, Rachida Dati remains herself in Morocco. "In Morocco, I have no subject. [...] My father, when they arrived from Doukkala, they arrived in a neighborhood called Derb Kabir, in Casablanca. I go there as when I was five years old, I was ten years old, I was fifteen years old. When I became Minister of Justice I continued. I go there all the time, I go see the neighbors, I go see everyone. I haven’t changed!" she added. The minister does not fail to provide support to her neighbors in the Sbata neighborhood in Morocco, where her father’s house is located. "I take care of them when they need medicine or to be treated, or some who want to go to Mecca [...]," she said.

She continues: "I don’t need to hide anything because people respect you, they also respect what you are. My daughter is fully integrated into this environment, so I admit, I’m not very beachy or anything, I’m very much in the Moroccan fabric, with my Moroccan family [...]." The French minister receives encouragement from her compatriots when she walks down the street. "[...] In Morocco, what I love and that always moves me, that touches me and encourages me, is the people who tell you: ’Oh, you defend Morocco. We are proud in Morocco.’ That encourages me and gives me a responsibility. I find that this country, I owe it a lot," she affirmed.

And she added: "I owe it my father, whom I loved the most, I owe it the life of my parents, I also owe it the fact that they had the idea of returning definitively to Morocco [...], I have this bond that, every time I set foot in Morocco, I have an emotion that overwhelms me." The mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris confided that Morocco is her refuge. "Whenever things aren’t going well, I come here. I take the plane, I take Zohra and I arrive. I can go see a cousin, we talk [...]," she said, assuring that she also comes to the aid of her loved ones in need.