Former ‘Sarkozettes’ slug it out

Reporting from Paris — They were once on the same side, singing from the same political song-sheet as the so-called Sarkozettes, glamorous female members of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s first government.

Today they are slugging it out in a public political squabble.

In the left corner: Chantal Jouanno, recently named sports minister, a karate champion and mother of three who last year was the subject of an unfounded rumor spread on the Internet that she was having a romantic affair with the president.

In the right corner: Rachida Dati, the glamorous former justice minister once reported to have been in love with the president but who fell out with him, was subsequently fired and sent to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, a sort of political gulag.

Jouanno swung first by announcing that she would be happy to join forces with the current prime minister, Francois Fillon, to form a dream team for the Paris mayoral election in 2014, he as mayor, she as deputy. She also scoffed at Dati’s maneuvering for the mayoral post, a hugely important position in France, often seen as a steppingstone to the presidency.

“An election in Paris is not a casting for a show … it’s not something to do just so you can be talked about,” she told Agence France-Presse news service in a swipe at Dati.

Jouanno also referred to Dati as the “mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris” — a chic and very expensive district — and suggested that she should be satisfied with her position as a European Parliament member: “That’s already good.”

For Dati, Jouanno’s comments were a “surprise aggression.” She accused her rival of having “no experience and no ideas.”

“No doubt she wants to be noticed by attacking me,” she told AFP.

Jouanno and Dati are both members of Sarkozy’s right-of-center ruling Union for a Popular Movement, or UMP party.

Dati, 45, one of 12 children of North African immigrants to France, was one of the darlings of Sarkozy’s first administration in 2007, nominated as justice minister despite having no experience in government or elective office. As the first woman of a non-European, Muslim background to occupy a key Cabinet position in France, she became a symbol of the president’s stated aim to establish an ethnically diverse government, an ambition he appears to have abandoned.

With Sarkozy as her mentor, she was also a close friend of the president’s former wife, Cecilia, who referred to Dati as “my sister.” When the presidential couple split and Sarkozy went on to marry supermodel-turned-singer Carla Bruni, many predicted that Dati’s days were numbered.

In the book “Carla and Nicolas — The True Story,” journalists Yves Azeroual and Valerie Benaim reported that Bruni once pointed to the double bed at the Elysee presidential palace and said to Dati: “You’d have loved to occupy it, wouldn’t you?”

Dati’s reportedly authoritarian management style also brought enemies. Eight of her closest advisors left within weeks of her taking office. One French magazine dubbed her the “Iron Lady,” another labeled her “Rachida Barbie” for her perceived lack of gravitas and penchant for expensive designer clothes and vertiginous stiletto heels.

She was fired as justice minister in 2009 and instructed by Sarkozy to stand for election as a member of the European Parliament, a job she has said bores her.

Jouanno, 41, the former ecology minister, was named sports minister in a government reshuffle in November. She too had never held elective office, but she had worked as a Sarkozy advisor.

This year, unsubstantiated rumors spread about the president’s marriage, suggesting that he and Bruni were having affairs: he with Jouanno and Bruni with a French musician. Associates of Jouanno told the Telegraph newspaper in Britain the rumors were “a disgusting slur on her honor.”

Dati was accused of being involved in the allegations about the president’s wife, an accusation she has vehemently denied.

The spat between Jouanno and Dati has surprised the French public on two fronts: The UMP likes to present a united front in order to portray the opposition Socialists as riven by internecine squabbling. But when disagreements do go public, they are most often between male politicians.

Professor Mariette Sineau of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris believes women in French politics have the same dust-ups as men but prefer to keep them out of the public eye.

“It is difficult for women politicians in France, they know they are in the spotlight and that the media is just waiting to criticize them, so their rows tend to be less public. But the rows are still going on,” she said.

Sineau said there was clearly jealousy and competition between the two women.

“Dati has lost the favor of the president of the republic and is treading water as a European member of Parliament looking for another high-profile job, while Jouanno is in the presidential circle and has a top-level post.”

The UMP party is eager to wrest the Paris mayor’s office from the Socialists; the popular Bertrand Delanoe of the Socialist Party has held the job since 2001 but has announced that he will not stand for a third term. Whoever gets the seat would have an edge in the race for president in 2017.

Jean-Francois Lamour, a leading UMP member, called on Jouanno and Dati to calm down.

“These are young women who don’t mince their words, they give as good as they get, but now it’s time to be a little more measured,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper. “The only way to win Paris in 2014 is through team and party unity, and to be talking about who is going to head the list [of candidates] is clearly premature.”

Philippe Goujon, president of the Paris branch of the UMP, agreed. “We have to all pull in the same direction and everyone find their own place. This is all a storm in a teacup,” he told Le Figaro.

“The story itself may well be lots of noise about nothing, but it shows that behind the scenes there are these rivalries and lots of jostling for publicity and political positioning,” Sineau said. “And it’s not all bad for either of these women: They’re in the headlines and being talked about.”

Willsher is a special correspondent.