Hard to keep the staff

Nothing seems to be going right for the justice minister, Rachida Dati, at the moment.

After admitting at the weekend that she had already used almost two thirds of this year’s entertainment budget allocated to her department, Dati is in trouble again.

This time around the party girl is having difficulty holding on to her staff and is now having to face yet another resignation from her ministry – the 11th since she took office

It’s probably worth remembering that Dati only took over the job 10 months ago, so at present her department is managing to haemorrhage at the rate of at least one person every month.

The latest to throw in the towel is her diplomatic adviser, Pierre Boussaroque.

There were already rumours afoot on Tuesday of his departure in the latest edition of the weekly satirical le Canard Enchaîné, and a day later it was the job of Dati’s spokesman, Guillaume Didier, to confirm the story.

It must be a bit of a thankless task for Didier to have to give credible explanations every time someone jumps ship, certainly in light of the high turnover of personnel within the department.

But he made a sterling attempt by insisting that Boussaroque had resigned to pursue a professional project, which he wanted to oversee in the coming weeks.

Didier also maintained that there was nothing unusual in people coming and going within a ministry. Unfortunately for Dati and her spokesman that might seem a little hard for many outsiders to swallow, as there seem to be an awful lot of “goings”.

One of the most notable departures in recent months was François Guéant, the son of Claude, who just happens to be one of the closest advisors to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

When seven people left following the resignation of her department director, Michel Dobkine, last summer, Dati responded to claims that they had walked because they had found it impossible to work with her by saying she “wanted a team that would follow orders.”

On past and current evidence that’s exactly what she’s getting – only they’re not apparently very keen to follow her orders.

Still there remain 19 brave souls who have so far stuck with her. But that’s unlikely to remain the case for much longer if we’re to believe le Canard Enchaîné – usually a reliable source of information even if it delights in regularly ridiculing the justice minister by criticising her methods as rushed and uniformed, and her behaviour as authoritarian.

At least two more members of her team are thought to be considering leaving, which, if they do so within the next few weeks, would at least increase her monthly rate of getting rid of people if not her popularity.