It took creating an entire website to catalog them. WikiDati.fr lists twelve of them. Twelve separate dossiers, prosecuted by different jurisdictions, revealed by independent journalistic investigations. They were conducted over several years by \u00abLib\u00e9ration\u00bb, \u00abBlast\u00bb, \u00abLe Monde\u00bb, \u00abFranceinfo\u00bb and even \u00abCompl\u00e9ment d\u2019enqu\u00eate\u00bb. On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, a thirteenth branch has just emerged, under the sign of the alleged surveillance of a lawyer from the Paris bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rachida Dati n’est plus ministre. La mairie de Paris lui a \u00e9chapp\u00e9 pour la deuxi\u00e8me fois cons\u00e9cutive. Mais son agenda judiciaire, lui, ne d\u00e9semplit pas. Car derri\u00e8re la trajectoire officielle, enfant de travailleurs immigr\u00e9s, juriste, Garde des Sceaux de Nicolas Sarkozy, ministre de la Culture, se dessine une autre biographie. Celle d’une femme politique dont les dossiers judiciaires accumul\u00e9s dessinent un portrait d\u00e9concertant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It all officially began with a convention signed in 2009 between Rachida Dati and Carlos Ghosn, then the all-powerful boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance. The stated purpose: legal advice and assistance in international development. The fees are high for a former recognized minister. The reality described by investigators from the National Financial Prosecutor\u2019s Office is radically different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behind the lawyer\u2019s facade, they suspect lobbying by the European Parliament in favor of an automobile manufacturer whose interests were directly affected by the eurodeputized\u2019s votes. Because while European parliamentarians have the right to practice the profession of lawyer, they are formally prohibited from lobbying. This is the entire line of disagreement between Rachida Dati\u2019s version and that of the investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For three years, the payments kept coming in. The new management of Renault-Nissan launched an internal audit after Ghosn\u2019s spectacular fall in 2018. It believes that the actual amount of work invoiced has never been proven. The final bill exceeds 900,000 euros. A minority shareholder of Renault, Dani\u00e8le Coutaz, represented by her lawyer Jean-Paul Baduel, filed a complaint in 2019. The National Financial Prosecutor\u2019s Office opened an investigation. Two years later, in 2021, Rachida Dati was charged with corruption and passive bribery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During her hearings, Dati consistently defended her version: she was the driving force behind the opening of the large automobile factory in Tangier, Morocco; helped find a favorable legal framework; facilitated the group\u2019s establishment in the Maghreb and the Middle East. Several testimonies collected by Radio France contradict this version. A Renault-Nissan lawyer, quoted by Franceinfo, succinctly summarizes the situation: \u00abIn 2010, everything was already in place.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In July 2025, the judges order the referral to criminal justice. The trial is set for September 16-28, 2026, at the judicial tribunal in Paris. Carlos Ghosn, who has been living in Lebanon since his spectacular escape in 2019, will be tried in his absence. For Rachida Dati, this will be the first substantive judicial confrontation over the case that triggered everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Renault-Ghosn affair is not an isolated case. It is part of a pattern that, as the investigations progress, seems to have been systematic over the ten years in the European Parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00abLib\u00e9ration reveals that starting in September 2010, Rachida Dati also became a lawyer for the Orange group. The remuneration is substantial, spread over several years. The problem is the same as in the Renault case: a member of the European Parliament cannot lobby. However, the interests of Orange, a telecommunications operator directly exposed to European regulations, were precisely within the scope of the texts voted in Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the story doesn\u2019t end there. An investigation conducted jointly by \u00abCompl\u00e9ment d\u2019enqu\u00eate\u00bb and Le \u00abNouvel Obs\u00bb and published in June 2025 reveals payments received through a Parisian firm corresponding to payments made by GDF Suez during the same period. The timing is particularly troubling. Indeed, during these years, Rachida Dati adopted positions in the European Parliament deemed favorable to the gas sector. She signed a tribune in \u00abLes \u00c9chos\u00bb calling for the cessation of subsidies for renewable energy. The plea corresponded point by point to the interests of a group like GDF Suez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked about this aspect, she claimed that GDF Suez had \u00abnever been her client.\u00bb Two elements undermine this version: mentions found in the notebook of her parliamentary assistant and invoices seized during subsequent searches. For \u00abTransparency International France,\u00bb the common thread of all these cases is identifiable. Behind the various structures, Renault-Nissan, Orange, and GDF Suez each appear to follow the same logic of interests. The logic of fossil fuels and large industrial groups seeking to influence European decisions, through a lawmaker suspected of using the powers of her mandate to favor them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C’est peut-\u00eatre le fil le plus lourd \u00e0 tirer, et l’un des moins m\u00e9diatis\u00e9s jusqu’aux r\u00e9centes perquisitions. Rachida Dati est d\u00e9crite par \u00ab\u00a0Lib\u00e9ration\u00a0\u00bb comme le visage du lobbying de Bakou en France. Elle si\u00e8ge dans une association que \u00ab\u00a0Le Monde\u00a0\u00bb qualifie de principal instrument de la \u00ab diplomatie du caviar \u00bb. Cette strat\u00e9gie d’influence attribu\u00e9e aux autorit\u00e9s azerba\u00efdjanaises aupr\u00e8s des \u00e9lus europ\u00e9ens, consiste \u00e0 acheter des relais politiques en Europe occidentale. Le but : contrer les critiques sur la d\u00e9mocratie et les droits humains dans ce pays p\u00e9trolier du Caucase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Les manifestations concr\u00e8tes de ces liens sont multiples. Elle f\u00e9licite le pr\u00e9sident Ilham Aliyev pour des r\u00e9\u00e9lections que les observateurs internationaux regardent avec un scepticisme affich\u00e9. Ses agendas, saisis lors de perquisitions dans le cadre d’une proc\u00e9dure distincte, font appara\u00eetre des contacts avec la SOCAR, compagnie p\u00e9troli\u00e8re nationale du pays. Les liens entre son positionnement politique sur les questions \u00e9nerg\u00e9tiques et les int\u00e9r\u00eats p\u00e9troliers azerba\u00efdjanais alimentent les soup\u00e7ons des enqu\u00eateurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A judicial investigation into this aspect will be opened in the autumn of 2025. The dimension is particularly sensitive. Indeed, it touches on the question of foreign influence on French and European democratic institutions. A subject that, since the Qatargate, has become a priority for specialized prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Le volet qatari est venu s’ajouter \u00e0 l’ensemble en 2024, dans un contexte particuli\u00e8rement sensible. Lorsque \u00ab\u00a0Blast\u00a0\u00bb publie des documents de travail r\u00e9dig\u00e9s par les assistants parlementaires de Rachida Dati, il appara\u00eet que certains portent sur des sujets directement li\u00e9s au Qatar. Ils semblent avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9dig\u00e9s \u00e0 l’attention d’un ministre du gouvernement de Doha. En effet, ces documents ne ressemblent pas \u00e0 des notes de travail interne. Ils ont l’apparence de briefings destin\u00e9s \u00e0 un destinataire ext\u00e9rieur \u00e0 l’institution parlementaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timing is particularly sensitive. Europe is currently dealing with the Qatargate scandal, the alleged corruption case at the European Parliament that broke in 2022. It led to the arrest of several Europarliamentarians and associates, including the Vice-President of the Parliament, Eva Kaili. In this context, parliamentary documents apparently transmitted to the Qatari government are particularly resonant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Financial Prosecutor\u2019s Office opens an investigation, then a judicial investigation. In December 2025, the investigators step up the pace: they search Rachida Dati\u2019s home and her offices. This is a sign that the investigations are no longer at the exploratory stage but that concrete elements now justify coercive actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the spring of 2025, Lib\u00e9ration reveals a more internal affair whose legal implications are serious. A collection of high-value jewelry was not mentioned in Dati\u2019s asset declaration to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life. The pieces identified by the newspaper bear prestigious signatures of Cartier, Bulgari, and Chopard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months later, \u00ab Blast \u00bb takes the investigation further and lists about thirty undeclared items. The estimated value could exceed several hundred thousand euros. But there is another detail that draws attention: the purchase invoices for these jewels are not in the name of Rachida Dati, but in the name of Henri Proglio, her former CEO at EDF, her partner. The question of whether these assets constitute a benefit in kind that should have been declared to the transparency authorities arises with urgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked, Rachida Dati brushed off the accusations: she has nothing to regulate, she has never been found in violation of the law. The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office, however, considers the matter serious enough to open a preliminary investigation, entrusted to the Financial and Anti-Corruption Brigade. This is a less extensive procedure than a judicial inquiry. But it means that the facts are deemed worthy of a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thirteenth case, the most recent, is arguably the most politically spectacular. Its origins are a vast judicial file called the \u00abbarbouzeries\u00bb scandal surrounding Paris Saint-Germain. Former officials of the Parisian club, police officers, and the Franco-Algerian lobbyist Tayeb Benabderrahmane are suspected. This central figure in the case is described as being close to Rachida Dati. His links with the entourage of PSG president Nasser Al-Khela\u00effi are at the heart of the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was while investigating this sprawling case that police officers made a surprising discovery. Investigations had been conducted, clandestinely, into an Air France shareholder who had filed a complaint against Rachida Dati and her lawyer. Specifically: consultations of Air France listings, questioning of files by police officers. If these were indeed carried out for surveillance purposes, they would constitute a serious infringement on individual freedom and privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alleged victims are Jean-Paul Baduel and his partner Dani\u00e8le Coutaz, who dared to file a complaint against Rachida Dati in 2019 in the Renault-Ghosn case. Baduel had himself filed a complaint in late 2022 regarding this \u00absecret investigation\u00bb targeting them. \u00abThere are malicious intentions behind this investigation against me and my wife,\u00bb he declared on May 12, 2026. He welcomed Dati\u2019s placement under the witness-assisted status. \u00abIt\u2019s a good start,\u00bb the lawyer added modestly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judicial hearing took place discreetly. Initially scheduled for March (during the municipal campaign), it was finally held on Thursday, 7 May 2026, at the Paris judicial tribunal. Rachida Dati was heard as an assisted witness. At this stage of the proceedings, she is not being prosecuted in this aspect. She contests all the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A second component, called \u00abAir France files,\u00bb concerns the circulation of confidential documents between the corridors of power and certain newsrooms. Again, two separate summonses were sent to him: one to the PJ police officers, another to the investigating judges themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alongside the PSG affair, elements consulted by \u00ab Le Monde \u00bb in early 2026 reveal another dimension of the links between Rachida Dati and Tayeb Benabderrahmane. According to these reports, she intervened repeatedly between 2018 and 2021 to support applications for residence permits for relatives of the lobbyist, including an Algerian investor. These interventions were nothing short of extraordinary: they would testify to a close relationship strong enough for the elected member of the 7th arrondissement of Paris to use her network in favor of the lobbyist\u2019s entourage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The burden of proof is particularly heavy here. Indeed, these interventions were confirmed to the investigators by Benabderrahmane himself, who therefore did not seek to protect Dati. But also by the political aide of the elected official in the 7th arrondissement. Two internal sources, therefore, which converge to describe facts that Rachida Dati disputes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We must return to a particular moment in this judicial biography that caused deep unease in the French public debate. In January 2024, while she has been under investigation for corruption and influence peddling for three years, Rachida Dati was appointed Minister of Culture in the Borne and then Attal governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This appointment was legally possible. But it raised a question of a nature not only moral but institutional as well. Can the Ministry of Culture, which oversees, among other things, public subsidies for the press, subsidies for the media, and support for creation, be entrusted to a minister who is simultaneously the subject of investigations for corruption? The question raised concerned the credibility of the institutions themselves and the separation of powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She left the government without the trial scheduled for autumn 2026 having taken place. Her ministerial agenda has lightened. Her judicial agenda, on the other hand, has continued to fill up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faced with the accumulation of revelations, Rachida Dati chose the path of legal action. This is a well-documented legal strategy, which lawyers call strategic law suits against public participation (SLAPP). Not to win, but to discourage, exhaust, and intimidate journalists, activists, and witnesses who might speak out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Aur\u00e9lie Filippetti, former Minister of Culture, publicly mentions these Azerbaijani connections, Rachida Dati sues her for defamation. The outcome is striking: Dati will be convicted, paying two thousand euros to Filippetti for abuse of process. Dati sued \u00abLe Canard Encha\u00een\u00e9\u00bb for defamation and lost as well. She attempted to have \u00abWikiDati.fr\u00bb closed by contacting the site\u2019s hosting company directly, without success. Dati publicly criticized the judges who are investigating the case, attacks that the president of the criminal court denounced as \u00abdiscrediting the judicial authority.\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pour Transparency International France, cette strat\u00e9gie \u00ab mine la confiance dans l’institution judiciaire et constitue une \u00e9ni\u00e8me attaque dommageable contre les fondements de l’\u00c9tat de droit \u00bb. L’organisation y voit non pas la d\u00e9fense d’une femme politique injustement attaqu\u00e9e mais un instrument de neutralisation de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 civile et de la presse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What this sequence reveals is also the asymmetry of the means. An investigative newspaper, an association, a militant \u2013 all of them can find themselves embroiled in lengthy, costly, exhausting procedures, even when they are right on the substance. The threat of trial is sometimes enough to dissuade them from publishing, from testifying, from denouncing. This is precisely the effect sought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dati affair, viewed as a whole, goes far beyond the personality of the former minister. It highlights several glaring flaws in the functioning of the institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For ten years, a French MEP was able, according to the accusations, to combine paid private activities with votes on texts directly related to her alleged clients. Without the existing control mechanisms triggering any alert. The European Parliament has rules on conflicts of interest, but they are largely based on self-declaration and the good faith of elected officials. In France, the HATVP could only belatedly identify omissions in her statements. The specialized prosecutors, on the other hand, were only alerted following complaints from private individuals. There are no automatic detection mechanisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Azerbaijani and Qatari cases illustrate how authoritarian states or oil-rich regimes can try to buy their way into the very heart of European institutions. The Qatargate showed that the problem was structural, not individual. The Dati case illustrates it again, from a different angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France is one of the few democratic countries that has no automatic rule preventing a minister under investigation from remaining in office. The debate on this point has existed for decades, without any reform having been implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The planned criminal trial from September 16 to 28, 2026, will be a test. Not only for Rachida Dati but for the ability of the French justice to deal thoroughly with cases involving money, politics, and foreign influence at the highest level. The media pressure will be intense. Rachida Dati\u2019s defense, provided notably by Messrs Olivier Pardo (Netanyahu\u2019s lawyer before the International Criminal Court) and Olivier Baratelli. It will undoubtedly mobilize all available means to challenge the charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carlos Ghosn, however, will be tried in his absence from Beirut. The former head of Renault-Nissan, who has presented himself as a victim of a political-judicial conspiracy since his spectacular escape from Japan in 2019, has not shown any intention of returning to France. His absence deprives the trial of a key player, but it does not prevent it from taking place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, until this major judicial hearing takes place, the woman continues to claim to be the victim of an unprecedented judicial and media onslaught. She contests every case, every revelation, every summons. Her line of defense is consistent: she is a political figure targeted because she is disruptive; because she is a woman; because she is of immigrant origin; because she embodies a certain idea of republican virtue that her opponents would not tolerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His lawyers do not comment. His entourage does not respond to requests from journalists. And the files, meanwhile, continue to pile up.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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