France: Profile of Justice Minister Rachida Dati, First French Minister of North African Origin

Although this article has a very positive spin, others (including Morocco Time) refer to Rachida Dati as a French Oreo.

In clubby France, a Muslim woman as justice minister
Rachida Dati presents Nicholas Sarkozy’s tough law-and-order proposals to the Senate this week.

Susan Sachs (The Christian Science Monitor)

As the new French government this week begins driving conservative crime-fighting reforms through parliament, its chief wrangler will be a doe-eyed Muslim who grew up in public housing.

Her background may be unconventional and her political experience thin. But Justice Minister Rachida Dati has already proved adept at breaking through barriers.

Ms. Dati is the first minister of North African heritage and one of seven cabinet-level women in France’s most diverse government ever. One of 12 children raised by a Moroccan father and an Algerian mother, she is a distinct oddity in the clubby, Christian, and male-dominated political elite.

Her trajectory from a crowded apartment block to the gilded corridors of French power is also an exception in a country where social advancement is rare for people of immigrant descent. She’s been held up as a minority success story, a testament to the value of hard work and a trophy for her mentor, President Nicolas Sarkozy and his idealized vision of France as a meritocracy…