Who’s Your Daddy?
Many people I know, especially those of a liberal persuasion, point to the great country of France as a model for appropriate behavior with regards to things like infidelity, lying, and ethics among the political classes. I guess they would say that France is more enlightened than the United States in these matters.
One enlightened citizen of France is the French Justice Minister Rachida Dati. Ms. Dati was born to a Moroccan father and Algerian mother. She is a little bit controversial in France. This article from June of this past year explains one controversy.
Two decades ago Rachida Dati…It was not quite an arranged marriage. It was a marriage “to please her family”. She immediately regretted her decision. She persuaded her Algerian husband to agree to an instant annulment.
…
Two decades later, Mme Dati is France’s first senior minister of north African origin. She is a protégée of President Nicolas Sarkozy. … As Justice Minister, she has already made several mistakes and many enemies, not least among her own political “allies”….
President Sarkozy calls her a “symbol” of his attempts to break down racial and social and gender barriers in France. As a symbol, he has told her several times, she has “no right to fail”.
Mme Dati, 43, now finds herself at the centre of a dangerous but, in many ways, foolish, national controversy. By one of the great ironies beloved of novelists and filmmakers, the controversy turns on an annulled marriage between two young French people of north African origin.
M. X, an engineer in his 30s, and recent convert to a strict reading of the Koran, married Mlle Y, a nursing student in her 20s. Before they were married, she promised him that she was a virgin. On their marriage night, M. X stormed out of their bedroom to protest to the wedding party – still in progress – that his wife had lied to him. She was not a virgin.
Under Article 180 of the French civil code, a marriage partner can demand an annulment if his or her spouse fails to fulfil an “essential” part of their pre-wedding agreement.
The court’s decision was made public late last week. It was made clear that the crucial point was not the bride’s lack of virginity but her lack of truthfulness. She had misled her partner. “Married life began with a lie, which is contrary to the reciprocal confidence between the married parties,” the court ruled.
There followed an explosion of outrage and political posturing – partly understandable but partly exaggerated and based on deliberate, or lazy, misrepresentation of the facts of the case.
The Lille court, it was alleged, had decided that virginity was an “essential quality” in a bride. (No it hadn’t). In a country rooted in secular principles, this was a dangerous slide towards “sharia law” (No it wasn’t).
Fadela Amara, the minister for France’s troubled multi-racial suburbs … said the court ruling was a “fatwa against the emancipation of women”. Dounia Bouzar, an … author of books on Islam in Europe, said: “It’s a victory for fundamentalists and a victory for those who look at Islam as an archaic religion that treats women badly… I’m sure the judge wanted to be respectful to Islam. Instead, the decision was respectful to fundamentalists.”
The ruling can be read that way. Fundamentalist Islam does not demand virgin bridegrooms, only virgin brides. The judgement is also, however, a fairly logical application of France’s existing marriage law. Several devout Catholic spouses have won similar annulments on the grounds that their partner had lied to them and concealed a previous divorce. Devout Catholics have a right, under French law, to demand undivorced spouses. That does not mean that French courts disapprove of divorce.
Left-of-centre politicians were outraged by the judgment. Centre-right politicians were oddly divided. Some seemed unsure whether to support the court ruling because they approved of virginity or to oppose it because they disapproved of Islam and north Africans. The veteran feminist campaigner, Elisabeth Badinter, injected a welcome note of common sense. The real, practical problem with the judgment, she said, was that it would boost an existing, disgusting industry in the “re-creation” of virgin hymens among young French women of north African origin.
Into this wasp’s nest of sincerity, confusion and deliberate bad faith, Mme Dati innocently reached her hand. No, she said, she saw no reason why the Government should appeal against the Lille judgment. “The annulment of a marriage is a way of separating rapidly – a way of protecting someone who wishes to be free of a marriage,” she said.
“I think that this young woman, for her own part, also wanted to be separated from her husband as soon as possible.
“The justice system is there to protect the weak and the modest when they are in difficulty.”
No one has asked Mme Dati about her own annulled marriage. No one in the French press has tried to make a connection between the two episodes 20 years apart. It is telling, however, that Mme Dati’s sympathies were with the young woman. Remembering her own narrow escape from a loveless marriage, she had perhaps, thought that the young woman was fortunate to have escaped from life with a narrow-minded, religious and sexual bigot.
Politically, however, Mme Dati’s reply was a catastrophe. Everyone from the far left to Marine Le Pen on the far right piled in to accuse her of insensitivity, of lack of understanding of France’s secular tradition and – implicitly – of being soft on Islam.
Finally, yesterday Mme Dati was forced to retreat. The justice ministry acknowledged that the Lille ruling had, “provoked a heated social debate”. In the circumstances, it said, “the ruling could be said to have wider significance than the relationship between two individuals. It touched all citizens of our country and especially women.”
The justice ministry has therefore asked the local public prosecutor to appeal against the judgment – and to try to restore the marriage of two young people who no longer want to be married. The episode is, therefore, officially over, until the appeal hearing is heard. But has Mme Dati been fatally wounded? Has the woman who “cannot afford to fail” finally exhausted the patience of President Sarkozy?
…
Well, has Dati finally exhausted the patience of Sarkozy? Maybe. But there is a second controversy. Ms. Dati just gave birth to a daughter, Zohra. Single, Ms. Dati has refused to identify the father of her baby.
Gravid Dati
As might be expected, there are no shortage of rumors and speculation regarding the identify of the father. Here is one source of speculation.
After months of gossip François Sarkozy, the younger brother of the President, was seen at the private Muette Clinic last night, adding to persistent although unconfirmed claims that he is le père. A source told The Times that he had visited Ms Dati with Guillaume Sarkozy, the President’s older brother.
So, the French President’s younger brother is rumored to be the father? The article continues
[François] Sarkozy, 47, a pharmaceutical industrialist, is reported to have spent Christmas with Ms Dati. Their liaison, if confirmed, may explain why the President appears reluctant to dismiss Ms Dati, 43, despite criticism of her performance at the Justice Ministry.
Yes indeed, when it comes to things like infidelity, lying, and ethics, the French are a veritable wellspring of enlightenment.
Yes! Minister!