<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><font color="#085294">France’s controversial new culture minister, Rachida Dati today said that she plans to run for Paris mayor in 2026, only days after joining President Emmanuel Macron’s reshuffled government.</font></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Dati’s arrival was the biggest surprise in last week’s cabinet shake-up that saw 34-year-old Gabriel Attal take over as prime minister.</div><div><br></div><div>Up until her appointment, Dati was a long-standing member of the opposition conservative LR party and is the mayor of the French capital’s chic 7th district that is home to most French ministries, the country’s parliament, and many foreign embassies.</div><div><br></div><div>She also served as justice minister under right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007 to 2009.</div><div><br></div><div>But as soon as she accepted the cabinet post from Macron, LR leader Eric Ciotti announced her exclusion from the party.</div><div><br></div><div>“My objective is Paris,” Dati told the RTL broadcaster. “That’s what I’ve always said.”</div><div><br></div><div>“My wish is to unite everybody who wants change in Paris, I am determined,” she said.</div><div><br></div><div>Dati, a 58-year-old of Moroccan-Algerian origin, was defeated by incumbent Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, a socialist, in the capital’s last municipal election in 2020.</div><div><br></div><div>Some analysts have speculated that Macron tapped Dati for the culture ministry post so she would run for mayor in the name of his own centrist alliance and finally take city hall after two-and-a-half decades of socialist control.</div><div><br></div><div>However, Macron yesterday told a televised news conference that he had not discussed Dati’s possible mayoral candidacy with her and at the weekend she denied press reports that suggested she had made an electoral pact with Macron.</div><div><br></div><div>But her announcement comes at the same time that Macron announced plans for electoral reform in Paris, Lyon, and Marseille, saying the mayor in those cities should be elected directly and no longer by an electoral college made up of city councillors.</div><div><br></div><div>Dati has called the current system “anti-democratic”, saying there was “no reason why Parisians can’t choose their mayor”.</div><div><br></div><div>Until now, Dati had been vocal in criticising figures from left and right who defected to Macron’s centrist alliance, which in 2021 she said consisted of “traitors” and amounted to “nothing without Emmanuel Macron”.</div><div><br></div><div>She was also charged in 2021 with corruption and abuse of power in connection with payments she received from the Renault-Nissan group, an automaker. But Macron responded that it was not the first time ministers in his government had faced charges and the presumption of innocence must prevail. - AFP</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>