French minister and fugitive tycoon face trial over ‘corruption pact'

Times

6 days ago

Rachida Dati, France's ambitious culture minister, and Carlos Ghosn, the fugitive car tycoon, have been sent for trial over an alleged €900,000 corruption pact.
The move will cast a shadow over Dati's campaign to become mayor of Paris next year and add to the legal woes besetting Ghosn, the former chief executive of Renault and Nissan who fled to Lebanon in 2019 after being charged with financial misconduct in Japan. Both deny wrongdoing.
Prosecutors allege that when Ghosn, 71, headed the Renault-Nissan alliance, he paid Dati, 59, then an MEP, €900,000 to carry out lobbying work on the companies' behalf in the European parliament between 2010 and 2012.
MEPs are not allowed to engage in such lobbying work. However, Dati and Ghosn say the payments were consultancy fees to help with the group's expansion in the Middle East and north Africa, which was legal. The 175-page indictment says investigators could find no trace of Dati's consultancy activities, however. Dati has been charged with corruption, influence peddling, breach of trust and receiving the proceeds of abuse of power.
Ghosn is accused of breach of trust, abuse of power, corruption and influence peddling. Le Monde said a preliminary hearing was due in September and the trial is likely to be scheduled next year, after March's council elections.
The timing leaves Dati facing the prospect of having to campaign in the mayoral race against a background of corruption allegations. Polls suggest that the centre-right minister is an overwhelming favourite to succeed Anne Hidalgo, the socialist incumbent, who is her longtime rival.
A political street fighter, Dati will almost certainly seek to shrug off the case, but internal opponents are waiting to pounce if her campaign is derailed. Foremost among them is Michel Barnier, the EU's former Brexit negotiator who was a short-lived prime minister last year.
• The fugitive CEO Carlos Ghosn on how he escaped jail in Japan
Although, like Dati, a member of the centre-right Republicans, Barnier wants to stand in a by-election in the wealthy Paris constituency that is her backyard. His initiative, seen as a stepping stone to the mayoral race, has infuriated Dati, who has indicated that she will run against him.
The trial is a fresh setback for President Macron, who lured Dati into his centrist government in January 2024 although she had previously been critical of him. With her tough-talking style she is one of the few ministers well known to voters in what is otherwise widely viewed as a weak, ramshackle cabinet.