A trial has begun in Paris against former French Culture Minister Rachida Dati on corruption charges related to her cooperation with automaker Renault-Nissan, reports UNN, citing The Guardian.
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Dati, 60, is accused of illegal lobbying: she received €900,000 as a fee for legal services from Renault-Nissan’s Dutch subsidiary while she was a Member of the European Parliament. The court is to determine what exactly the money was paid for.
Dati’s defense rejects all corruption allegations, claiming that she worked "exclusively" as a lawyer for Renault-Nissan’s subsidiary. French prosecutors, however, insist that she was paid to lobby for the automaker’s interests—an activity prohibited for Members of the European Parliament. According to prosecutors, there is no evidence that Dati actually performed legal work.
The investigation into Dati began in 2019 on suspicion of illegally lobbying for Renault-Nissan’s interests between October 2009 and February 2013, when she was a Member of the European Parliament.
Carlos Ghosn, the former head of Renault-Nissan who fell from grace, is also being tried alongside Dati; he will be tried in absentia. Ghosn, 72, was detained in Japan in November 2018 on allegations of financial misconduct in another case involving the falsification of data about his personal income for the purpose of personal enrichment. He evaded trial in Japan by fleeing to Lebanon, notably hiding in an audio-equipment box. He denies any wrongdoing both in the Japanese case and in the case involving Dati.
French prosecutors claim that a legal-services contract signed in 2009 between Dati and Ghosn, under which Dati received an annual fee of €300,000, was used to conceal lobbying activities. Investigators obtained the contract in 2019 during a search of Renault’s headquarters after Ghosn’s arrest in Japan.
Dati, 60, who serves as mayor of Paris’s 7th arrondissement, is one of the best-known figures among French right-wing politicians. She became the first woman of North African and Muslim origin to hold a senior position in the French government when conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy appointed her justice minister. She later returned to the government under President Emmanuel Macron, serving as culture minister.
Dati changed perceptions of a political public figure in France; according to her, growing up in a large family—she was the second of 11 children—in a social-housing neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy helped her better understand the French electorate. Earlier this year, she ran for mayor of Paris but lost to Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire.
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If convicted, Dati faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to €450,000. She could also face a five-year ban on holding public office.
Dati’s lawyers said: "The baseless allegations of influence peddling in the European Parliament are based on an artificial legal construct invented by the prosecution."
In a separate investigation, Dati is accused of receiving nearly €300,000 in undeclared payments from energy group GDF Suez while she was a Member of the European Parliament. Last year, prosecutors said they were examining information that Dati had failed to declare jewelry and watches worth €420,000 when taking office as a minister.
She denies all allegations of wrongdoing.