Photo: (c) Marie Docher whose work appears at http://docher.com/
When one of France's most intriguing politicians summons you to Paris, and the name on the e-mail is Rachida Dati, there really is only one sensible answer.
So off I went on the early TGV from Toulon to meet her. Since she had
set aside 90 minutes to spend in my company, it would have been impolite to decline.
Mme Dati, as every schoolboy with an interest in such matters should know, is currently the most successful French politician of Arab/Muslim stock.
She is the UMP (centre-right Gaullist party) mayor of the seventh arrondissement of Paris with offices - quite modest offices, I should add in these troubled times for the French body politic - on the Left Bank, a short walk from the Solférino Métro station.
Her ambitions do not end with this post.
Having already served as justice minister, during that part of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency when she was championed by him, and still serving as an MEP, she has her eyes on City Hall. And perhaps - pourquoi pas?, to use her own phrase - even the Elysée.
There is plenty standing in her way.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, another former Sarko minister and commonly known, DSK-style, by her initials NKM, is the favourite to win the UMP nomination in primaries due at the end of next month.
Anne Hidalgo, the socialist contender, is seen by the left as the natural successor to Bernard Delanoë, whom I interviewed in 2004.
As for the ultimate goal of presidency, Mme Dati has significant hurdles to overcome. I mentioned to her how fanciful it was considered not so long ago to stand as a Celt in hopes of becoming prime minister of Britain. If being Scottish or Welsh is an impediment to rising to the top in UK politics, imagine what it must be like for someone from the Maghreb, or having Maghrebin origins, in France.
But Mme Dati born to a Moroccan father and Algerian mother, insists that France is changing.
She says her pourquoi pas? is a reference to people like her, from lowly immigrant backgrounds, rather than to her own personal ambitions (not everyone believes her in this respect) and that there is no longer any reason why such a person should not achieve the highest office. Who, 10 years ago, would have thought, that Barack Obama would become president of the USA? That was her question.
I enjoyed meeting Mme Dati. It was a business-like encounter and her fingers were never too far from her Blackberry. But she answered every question put to her, often at some length (only her love life, much discussed by the media, was deemed off limits but she was happy to talk about the way the press treats her, how she juggles single motherhood and a busy political schedule and her views on pretty much any issue put to her. I didn't think to ask how she felt the Newcastle United v Sunderland game would go but imagine she was as pleased as anyone with L'Equipe's generous coverage of the outcome). Nor I did I ask about Margaret Thatcher; her thoughts would have been interesting but our meeting took place some days before her death.
My only regret was that the interview was arranged as an awayday, meaning 90 minutes on the road, nine hours on trains and precious little time to reacquaint myself with Paris.
There was time for lunch near the seventh arrondissement Hôtel de Ville, coffee with the photographer Marie Docher, who keeps texting or emailing me whenever Paris is basking under blue skies as it approaches its most lovely part of the year, and a stroll back across the Seine to the Métro at Concorde on my way back to the Gare de Lyon.
Marie kindly consented to my use of one of her photos from the interview. It shows Mme Dati in full flow with a slice of me on the left across the desk from her. Her mayoral adviser Jonathan Kyle, one of two brothers - English but brought up in France - who work for her in Brussels and Paris, is on the right.
And the resulting articles, published on successive days by The National, Abu Dhabi, can be seen as follows:
* Arab woman's ambition could guide her all the way to the Elysee palace
** France's female Arab mayor a role model who highlights personal effort
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