Political groups

2009-2019: Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) 

National parties

2009-2015: Union pour un Mouvement Populaire
2015-2019: Les Républicains

Biography

Rachida Dati was born in Saint-Rémy, Burgundy. She studied at the University of Burgundy, where she received a master's degree in Economics, and at Panthéon-Assas University, where she received a law degree. 

In 1990, Dati entered the audit management team of Matra Nortel Communications. She later spent a year in London in the records management and archiving department of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 1994, she was an auditing supervisor and Secretary-General of the Bureau of Urban Development studies at Suez and, later, Lyonnaise des Eaux. From 1995 to 1997, she worked as a technical advisor at the legal management division of the Ministry of Education.

In 1997, Dati was admitted to the École nationale de la magistrature, a public educational institution which offers the requisite courses to become a magistrate. Upon leaving the institution in 1999, she became a legal auditor at the Bobigny Tribunal de Grande Instance. She then went on to become judge for collective procedures at the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Péronne and an assistant to the attorney general of the Évry Tribunal.

In 2002, Dati became Nicolas Sarkozy's advisor, working for him on an anti-delinquency project. In 2006, she joined the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. She was named spokesperson for Sarkozy for the presidential elections. After Sarkozy's victory on 6 May 2007, she was appointed Minister of Justice. Her rationalization of the court system was publicly opposed by judicial professionals, though it would later be recognised by the French Court of Auditors as one of the most ambitious reforms of the French judicial institution.

French Minister of Justice Rachida Dati (L) meets with European Parliament's President Hans-Gert Pöttering (R) in Strasbourg © European Union 2008 - European Parliament

On 23 January 2009, Sarkozy announced that Dati would take the second position on the UMP candidate list for Île-de-France constituency in the European Parliament election in June 2009, a seat to which she was elected. She left her post as minister after being elected as a European deputy.

Soon after Dati left this post for the European Parliament, Dati changed careers to law, becoming a junior magistrate and assistant prosecutor. She also founded the consulting company "La Bourdonnais consultant.” which she had to dissolve at the beginning of 2010 to be able to resume the profession of lawyer, which she had to do by special dispensation like other former magistrates. On the local level, Dati was the Mayor of the 7th district of Paris and Member of Paris City Council. 

A member of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, Dati served on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and on Parliament's delegations for relations with the Mashreq countries, to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean and for relations with the Arab Peninsula during the 8th legislative period. During the 7th legislative period, she served on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Delegation for relations with the United States of America and the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis. 

Rachida Dati (R) speaking at a conference on the Gulf diplomatic crisis – Tackling the financing of terrorism © European Union 2018 - European Parliament

In parliament, Dati was the Parliament's rapporteur on several texts dealing with countering terrorism and the prevention of radicalisation and recruitment of European citizens by terrorist organisations. Following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015, she drafted a report into how to prevent the radicalisation of young Europeans. Her parliamentary work also included dealing with the prison systems and conditions in the European Union, and finding solutions to face the migration crisis with an EU common list of safe countries of origin. 

In early 2019, she announced her plan to run for mayor in the Paris municipal election in 2020, but this was unsuccessful.

For more information on her time as an MEP, click here.

What’s in the archives

These fonds contain three information brochures on MEP Dati’s activities for her voters.