Culture Minister Rachida Dati announced on Wednesday that she had submitted her resignation from the government to President Emmanuel Macron to “fight the battle of her life” in the Paris municipal elections, two and a half weeks before the first round.
“I will change Paris and the lives of Parisians,” promised the right-wing candidate for mayor of the capital on BFMTV, specifying that she had submitted her resignation to the President of the Republic this morning. “The head of state thanked her for the useful action she has carried out in the service of the French people over the past two years and offered her all his encouragement in the battle she is leading,” said the Elysée Palace.
“I leave these responsibilities with deep respect and great gratitude for those who bring to life, on a daily basis, the cultural policy of our country,” Rachida Dati also wrote, ensuring that culture constitutes “an essential foundation of our national cohesion.”
Close associates and detractors agree: with her candid speech and media presence, the 60-year-old Sarkozy-era minister has brought visibility to a ministry that, under Emmanuel Macron, had been entrusted to more discreet personalities. In fact, she is one of the very few to have survived all the reshuffles since January 2024, despite facing corruption charges that she will answer in court in the autumn.
“I love to fight,” she had said when taking office. Despite restrictions, she claims to have succeeded in minimizing the damage in culture, even though her ministry’s credits this year have decreased by 173.4 million out of a budget of 3.7 billion euros (excluding audiovisual).
Known for her love of combat, she has at times treaded on thin ice, such as when she threatened legal action against journalist Patrick Cohen on France 5 or accused, under oath, the magazine of France 2, Complément d’enquête, of bribing a relative. Each time, the minister takes responsibility but polarizes opinions. Denouncing the “verbal attacks,” the CGT Spectacle union had called for her resignation in 2025.
“Public broadcasting in the crosshairs”
From the start, Rachida Dati made the reform of public broadcasting her priority, believing that France Télévisions, Radio France, and the INA must unite against platforms. “There is an imperative,” she declared at the beginning of February.
Shaken by the failed dissolution in 2024, this holding company project was tossed about in the midst of political instability. Its chaotic adoption in the Senate in 2025 seemed to offer a glimmer of hope, but the government did not include it in the upcoming agenda of the Assembly, and the text is now in limbo.
