Tough privacy laws make life difficult for media fascinated by Rachida Dati�s story.
From Hugh Schofield in Paris

EUROPE'S press has launched itself into a coy game of hunt-the-father after the revelation that France's justice minister Rachida Dati, a single woman and a Muslim, is expecting a baby. Dati, a petite 42-year-old who is a devoted ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy, confirmed on Wednesday what her shape was making it impossible to hide, telling journalists that the pregnancy was a source of huge personal happiness. But she quickly scotched any attempt to discover the paternity, saying only that: "I have a complicated private life. I will not be communicating further on this matter."

French newspapers and broadcast media have tied themselves in contortions trying to reconcile their legal duty not to pry into a minister's private life with the enormous public interest in so fascinating a human tale. For the most part this has meant using their internet sites to report "factually" the gossip being purveyed by more salacious non-French media - thus simultaneously stoking the story and keeping a prudent distance.

The names of several candidates have been aired, including Dominique Desseigne, head of a casino and hotel empire; Henri Proglio, CEO of Veolia Environment; and a popular French television presenter known simply as Arthur. Bizarrely, one Moroccan internet site cited the former Spanish prime ministerJose-Maria Aznar as Dati's lover. Aznar promptly issued a denial, but not before his name had been circulated around the world.

Other sites even suggested artifical insemination. The truth is, though, that no-one outside of Dati's immediate circle knows who is the baby's father, and as she seems bent on remaining unattached, the secret appears secure.

The tittle-tattle over paternity has obscured the more important aspect of the affair, which is surely Dati's determination to push back the limits on what Muslim women may or may not publicly achieve in France. Born in 1965 to a Moroccan bricklayer father and an Algerian mother, Dati was brought up in a high-immigration banlieue in the Burgundy town of Chalons-sur-Saône.

She is the second in a family of 11 children, and two of her brothers have recently been in trouble with the law. Driven by an indomitable urge to prove herself above her unpromising origins, she became an accountant and then a magistrate before being talent-spotted by Sarkozy, who saw in her the embodiment of his ideal of the striving outsider.

According to a profile in Le Point magazine this week, "Sarkozy recognised himself in the courage, the nerve, the self-assurance of this child of immigrants. As she herself has said, There's something in me that creates an echo in him, a kind of mirror effect. Like me, he cannot stand humiliation'."

Dati made her name as Sarkozy's spokeswoman in last year's presidential election campaign, and after victory was appointed Garde des Sceaux (Keeper of the Seals, ie justice minister), by far the highest position ever enjoyed by a Muslim in France, let alone by a Muslim woman. Her 16 months in office have not been without controversy, and it is clear she can inspire irritation as well as admiration.

In all 15 members of her Cabinet team have resigned, whispering of an authoritarian manner and failure to comprehend complex briefs. Across the country the legal profession reacted with ill-concealed hostility to Dati's reform programme, one element of which was to close hundreds of small local tribunals and create a network of regional judicial hubs.

In another controversial move, she put in place minimum sentences for several violent and sexual offences, leading to a big increase in the already over-large prison population, as well as to charges that she was usurping the powers of magistrates.

Demonstrations by lawyers and judges are still regularly staged when Dati tours the land, but, buttressed by the support of the president and her own feisty temperament - she has never flinched. Her reforms now appear firmly in place. Meanwhile, opinion polls show her to be one of the most popular members of the government, and earlier this year she won her first elected seat as mayor of the seventh arrondissement in Paris.

As the profile in Le Point argued, "whatever her faults, the French prefer to focus on her merits - our faith in her all the greater for the guilty conscience we share towards the Muslim commmunity."

According to colleagues, Dati's tough character has been forged by years of battling against condescension and low expectations, and she is maddened by any hint that she is a token beur (north African) who has risen above her station.

The pregnancy provides further evidence of this wilful sense of independence. Dati will not be the first French government member to have a baby - the Socialist Ségolène Royal had that honour 16 years ago - but she's certainly the first with no known partner. And a believing Muslim to boot.