Former French MEP Rachida Dati is facing intense scrutiny following allegations she took lobbying money from French energy giant GDF Suez/Engie during her time at the European Parliament, on top of a separate investigation into her ties with French car maker Nissan-Renault.

The 60-year-old, who was born to Arab parents and started out as a maid, is also a former French culture and justice minister, and now mayor of the affluent 7th arrondissement in Paris.

But she also risks wearing a police ankle-bracelet and faces four years in prison in ongoing trials into her ties with the French companies, which first hit the headlines in 2025.

And back in 2014, when she sat in the European Parliament on the benches of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group, she threatened to sue EUobserver because we asked her about GDF Suez, which later changed its name to Engie, while deriding the corruption allegations against her as racist slurs.

EUobserver has published below some of the related email correspondence for the sake of transparency:

“Rachida Dati will not hesitate to sue any media which will report such a defamatory statement,” her office also said in an email in 2015, after a German Green MEP, who was spearheading an ethics committee, said she was likely pocketing GDF Suez money.

The allegedly “defamatory statement” had been made by Gerald Häfner, a former German MEP, who had chaired the parliament’s advisory committee on its Code of Conduct.

Häfner’s supposedly offensive words were:

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

The popularity of French President Emmanuel Macron and his prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has plummeted due to the ongoing fuel crisis, BFMTV reports, citing a poll conducted by Odoxa-Mascaret for the online broadcaster Public Sénat and regional media.

The poll was conducted last week, ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s speech on rising fuel prices.

The French president’s approval rating has fallen to a historic low of just 18 percent. That is a decrease of as much as 7 percentage points from the end of June.

At the same time, support for the French prime minister fell by 8 percentage points. Currently, 24 percent of the French consider him a good head of government.

The poll shows that 75 percent of respondents in France believe the government’s announced expansion of assistance for frequent long-distance drivers is insufficient. Sixty-two percent argue that the government should allocate more resources to solve the problem, despite France’s budget deficit.

Le Pen wins the French presidential election

A poll conducted for radio station RTL shows that if Marine Le Pen faced Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of the far-left La France Insoumise party, in the second round of the French presidential election, she would receive 69 percent of the vote and Mélenchon 31 percent.

The poll shows that Le Pen is well poised to crush the far-left contender.

If Marine Le Pen faced Édouard Philippe, the candidate of the centre-right Horizons party, in the second round, she would receive 57 percent of the vote and Philippe 43 percent.

In both scenarios, Marine Le Pen’s lead is larger than in previous similar polls.

For a candidate that has been convicted and attacked for years by the French establishment media, Le Pen’s turnaround is incredible.

The study also shows that in the first round, under various candidate scenarios, Marine Le Pen would come first if the election were held now, with 35 to 36 percent of the vote.

The first round of the French presidential election will take place on April 18, 2027 and the second round on May 2. The election will end 12 days before the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second and final presidential term, which ends on May 14.

The RTL poll was conducted between September 22 and 24 among a sample of nearly 2,000 people .

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A 93-year-old disabled woman, who neighbors described as “the little grandmother of the neighborhood,” was found dead inside her small house in Toulouse on Sunday afternoon. Inside the home, police arrested a naked Sudanese illegal migrant in his 30s, according to French media reports.

Neighbors in the Minimes district, behind the Cité Bourbaki housing complex, called police after hearing prolonged screams and insults coming from the house of the woman, identified by local media as Juliette.

Officers arrived about 5:00 p.m. Sunday and found her body inside. The Sudanese migrant was subsequently removed from the residence, with neighbors telling the press that he was naked and fighting with officers as they tried to restrain him.

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One officer was injured in the shoulder, according to accounts given to La Dépêche du Midi and confirmed by the Toulouse prosecutor.

Toulouse prosecutor David Charmatz said the suspect was “in an altered state,” according to witnesses at the scene, and that police subdued him only with difficulty.

A homicide investigation was opened. Charmatz’s office sent a duty magistrate to the scene to oversee detectives and speak with family members who arrived later in the evening.

Police technicians and investigators from the organized and specialized crime division remained at the house for hours. Additional charges could be added as the inquiry proceeds, local reporting said. The precise cause and circumstances of the woman’s death had not been publicly detailed Monday.

Residents described Juliette as a longtime fixture of the street.

“She was the little grandmother of the neighborhood,” one neighbor told La Dépêche, still in shock.

A man in his 30s who lives next door said, “It’s awful. She saw me being born. We used to do her shopping.”

A frightened resident who called emergency services said the shouting “kept going” and that she did not immediately understand where it was coming from.

The suspect remained in custody Monday.

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