Rachida Dati returns to work

Rachida Dati, France's glamorous and controversial Justice Minister, went back to work on Wednesday only five days after giving birth to her daughter Zohra by Caesarian section, and still refusing to quell media speculation over who the father might be.

Dati, who recently told reporters that she had "a complicated private life,"
sparked a national guessing game over the identity of the father. The latest suspect was President Sarkozy's younger brother Francois, who was seen visiting her maternity clinic on Sunday, but he has since denied the child is his. Baron Dominique Desseigne, the millionaire hotel and casino owner, and former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, have also both denied being the father.

Under French law, 43-year-old Dati, like any other working woman, was entitled to a total of 16 weeks' paid maternity leave. But she was apparently anxious to get back for the first French cabinet meeting of the New Year and to quash the continued speculation that she might be dropped from her job in a cabinet reshuffle after a series of blunders during her tenure at the Justice Department in the Place Vendome.

More important, she did not want to appear sidelined when Sarkozy announced his proposal for a radical judicial reform - the scrapping of the Napoleonic system of investigating magistrates in order to bring French justice further in line with the Anglo-American system.