3 September 2008

PARIS -- France's high-profile justice minister, Rachida Dati, on Wednesday confirmed rumours that she is pregnant but kept the father's name under wraps, according to Le Monde newspaper.

"I want to remain careful, because... I am still in the risky stage. I am 42," the Muslim-born Dati told a group of reporters ahead of Wednesday's cabinet meeting, the paper's web edition, www.lemonde.fr, reported.

Dati, who is single, refused to reveal the father's name.

"I have a complicated private life. That is the limit I have set myself with regard to the press. I will not say anything on that."

The minister's swelling figure, photographed outside a cabinet meeting in August as the government returned from its summer break, fuelled a storm of media rumours about her pregnancy.

The second of 12 children born to a Moroccan labourer and an Algerian mother, Dati said it was "fundamental" for her to have a child.

"If it is consolidated, I will be happy and feel as if I have completed the circle. If not I will be deeply sad, but I will put a coat of lipstick on it, and carry the burden on my own."

Dati, the first politician of north African origin named to a top government post following President Nicolas Sarkozy's election in 2007, was hailed as the new face of France.

But her problems have since piled up, with a dozen members of her cabinet resigning over her management style and critics accusing her of ramming through reforms. Dati also appears to have been excluded from Sarkozy's inner circle.

[AFP / Expatica]