France’s Justice Minister Rachida Dati has given birth to a baby girl, Zohra.
Dati is unmarried and the identity of the father remains secret. Dati will only say she has “a complicated private life.”
Several prominent European men have give public denials that they are the father, including a former Spanish Prime Minister and a sports figure.
Imagine a similar situation in the United States. If an unmarried member of the President’s cabinet became pregnant, there would be pressure for that woman to resign. It is inconceivable that the identity of the father could be kept secret while holding public office. I am not saying one way is better than he other, but it points out a stark cultural difference between France and the United States.
Over the past year, Dati has been the subject of heavy criticism for the prison reforms she has instituted. Several of her aides have resigned over her management style.
Dati, 43, is the first politician of North African origins to hold a high French government position. Raised as a Muslim, she was the second child of a Moroccan laborer and illiterate Algerian mother. She annulled an arranged marriage made in her youth.
As the first Muslim cabinet minister in French government, Dati was considered a voice of France’s North African minority. However, her tough law and order reforms, and now being an unmarried single mother, have brought many French Muslims to detest her.
