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Rabat – French prosecutors want Culture Minister Rachida Dati and ex-car boss Carlos Ghosn to face trial as they are accused of striking an illegal deal.
In a 175-page document, investigators say Dati, 58, and Ghosn, 70, broke the law. Dati is charged with corruption, influence peddling, and breach of trust; Ghosn faces similar accusations, including abuse of power.
Dati, a former justice minister, has had a high-profile career. She is the daughter of a Moroccan bricklayer, and gained fame in 2007 when she became justice minister. She later made headlines for posing in designer clothes and returning to work just five days after giving birth.
This year, President Macron brought her back and named her culture minister. Dati is also aiming to run for mayor of Paris in 2026. However, this case could damage her ambitions.
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Ghosn was the head of the Renault-Nissan alliance and has lived in Lebanon since 2019. Faced with charges of financial misconduct, he escaped house arrest in Japan and claimed he was the victim of injustice.
French and Japanese prosecutors want Ghosn back to face trial. But living in Lebanon, he remains out of reach, protected by local laws.
The accusations focus on payments worth MAD 9,000,000 ($900,000) made between 2010 and 2012. At the time, Dati was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Ghosn led Renault-Nissan. On paper, the payments were for consulting work in the Middle East and North Africa. But prosecutors found no record of such work.
Instead, they believe the money was for lobbying in the European Parliament. And this would violate EU rules which ban MEPs from lobbying for pay.
Dati has denied any wrongdoing. She called the accusations “slanderous” and “shocking,” blaming political rivals for trying to tarnish her reputation. Her lawyers, Olivier Baratelli and Olivier Pardo, said the case against her is flawed. They added that the prosecution document contained a “partial and inexact” version of the facts “even though all the proof of Rachida Dati’s innocence has been provided.”
Ghosn also rejects the claims. His lawyers, Jacqueline Laffont-Haïk, Cloé Fonteix, Martin Reynaud and Léon del Forno said he also rebutted the claims. They said he was “blocked on Lebanese territory pursuant to a legal decision [and] unable to answer the summons from the [French] investigating magistrates”. They said the arrest warrant for him was illegal and claimed that his rights had been “flouted”.
