Sarkozy swipes ex-minister’s perks for ‘affair rumours’

FRANCE’S ex-justice minister Rachida Dati has lost her chauffeur-driven limousine and bodyguards after annoying President Nicolas Sarkozy with a recent TV appearance, reports said yesterday.

However, several media outlets reported Sarkozy has exacted revenge on Dati as he believes it was she who spread rumours that both he and his wife were having extra-martial affairs.

Dati, who fell out of favour with Sarkozy last year and now serves as a member of the European Parliament, turned up on national television recently to comment on regional elections in which Sarkozy’s party was roundly defeated.

After spotting Dati on the screen and complaining that she had been absent from the campaign trail, Sarkozy called the head of national police and asked that she be stripped of her limousine, chauffeur and security detail, the Canard Enchaine weekly reported.

Aides to Dati confirmed some aspects of the report.

“We are talking essentially about three police officers who were told to end their assignment on March 14”, the night that Dati went on television, said the official.

“It’s not clear that it was a decision taken by the president,” he said. “What is certain is that it was a decision by the interior minister.”

The interior ministry said former ministers are allowed to keep their limousines and security detail for six months after they leave the government and that Dati’s time had expired.

The 44-year-old Dati became the first French Arab female government minister when she was named justice minister in 2007 after Sarkozy’s election.

Sarkozy believes Dati was behind rumours his wife Carla Bruni was having an affair with pop singer Benjamin Biolay, while he was allegedly seeing his ecology minister, Chantal Jouanno.

The rumours of extra- martial affairs were rubbished by the French premiere.

According to reports, Nicolas took “retaliatory action” against the 44-year- old Dati, the night his ruling Right-wing UMP party suffered a drubbing in the first round of regional elections on March 14.

It is believed Sarkozy was watching the fallout from his electoral hammering on television when Ms Dati appeared and lightly criticised his strategy.

He is understood to have exploded with rage and ordered French national police chief Frederic Pechenard to take away Dati’s interior ministry limousine, her driver and bodyguards.