Paris (AFP)

Pugnace but clivante, symbol of diversity became mayor of the seventh arrondissement, Rachida Dati, who received Wednesday the investiture The Republicans to lead the battle of the municipal in Paris, embarks on an election become very complicated for the right.

"She has a combative character, she is determined," says a former collaborator. "Objectively, we can say that she goes in. The question is whether she sees a wall or not," he adds to sum up this 53-year-old lawyer, daughter of a Moroccan mason and a mother in Algerian home, put forward by Nicolas Sarkozy.

If the former president paid tribute, in his recent book Passions, to his "inexhaustible energy", the strong character of the former Minister of Justice has attracted him only friendships - "she has her moods", summarizes diplomatically an elected.

"A cleavage image," sighs a Republican executive, "but no one else has really emerged." "We do not have many candidates with its notoriety", recalls another: the time is far where the right could align the Grand Slam in the capital. And the crisis shaking Republicans for years makes recruitment difficult.

At five months of the municipal, the former MEP is no illusion: "It's going to be a dog campaign," she said recently in the World, pointing to those in his political family "who wake up every morning by asking how they will be able to harm me ".

Especially since Rachida Dati is targeted by a survey of the National Financial Office for "abuse of social assets" and "corruption" for consulting services concluded with a subsidiary of Renault-Nissan. The elected denies any irregularity.

In politics, she wants to be intractable and does not care about the old barons of the right, not hesitating to raise the tone especially against Claude Goasguen, a year ago, when he disapproves publicly. Before designating him as his political advisor for his campaign this Wednesday.

Even before her appointment, she set the rules: an LR list by sector, implicitly threatening those who do not support it to impose another candidate.

- "A playing card" -

Has Paris become an impossible mission for the right? The mayor of the seventh, yesterday a symbol of diversity, "can also seduce in the eastern districts with its course.There is a card to play with this electorate more popular," said an official LR.

Long before being invested, Rachida Dati has also increased the number of trips to the popular arrondissements, such as Porte de la Chapelle, where his entourage recounts a long incursion on the "crack hill", a drug addicts' haunt in the north of France. is from the capital.

Born on November 27, 1965, the candidate from a family of twelve children and raised in an HLM of Chalon-sur-Saone, never hid her ambition.

Her family, like her mentors Albin Chalandon or Simone Veil, paint the portrait of a young woman paying for her studies thanks to the work (saleswoman in supermarkets, nursing assistant ..) and striking with stammer at the most prestigious doors to get internships or jobs.

She was crowned by Nicolas Sarkozy, where she was the counselor and the campaign spokesperson. She emerged from the shadows through the front door in May 2007, when she was 41 at the time of the post of Keeper of the Seals (until 2009).

If she picks up her wax statue at the Musée Grévin, her character and methods win her the hostility of the judicial world, to the exasperation of collaborators who end up resigning.

Her appearances in celebrity magazines, her well-publicized pregnancy - until she returned to the ministry five days after giving birth - are also irritating.

Pushed against her will in spring 2009 in the European campaign, she is elected MP in Strasbourg but does not hide her boredom: "I have to stay there, to make the malignant", she sighs - a sentence captured by a microphone in the Strasbourg hemicycle ...

Elected in 2008 mayor of the seventh arrondissement, it has since moved a little behind the spotlight. "It was forgotten, which was a smart strategy," said a party executive.

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