French lawmaker’s five-day maternity leave fuels debate

The super-short maternity leave of French justice minister Rachida Dati is stirring a debate in France over how to juggle a high-powered political career with the demands of motherhood.

The 43-year-old minister has been a hot topic of discussion since she returned to work last week only five days after the caesarean birth of her daughter Zohra. After stepping out of a Paris maternity clinic, Dati arrived smiling and spruced up for a cabinet meeting at the Elysee presidential palace.

While women’s groups say Dati set a bad example, many of her fellow female politicians admit they too would have opted for a quick return to work: politics, they say, requires 100% commitment.

"Being back on the job only five days after a caesarean is too soon, there’s no doubt about that," commented former presidential candidate Segolene Royal, who in 1992 became France’s first pregnant minister.

Royal took a swipe at president Nicolas Sarkozy for choosing to announce a major justice reform on the day Dati left the clinic and said he was trying to steal her thunder. "I understand that Rachida Dati felt that she had to be at the president’s side" when he announced justice reforms, said Royal.

A single mum, Dati has kept the father’s identity under wraps, saying she had ‘a complicated private life’.