The former French justice minister, Rachida Dati, has given her side of the story to the recently televised clip in which, during a personal 'phone call, she appears to be expressing her frustrations about her job as a European parliamentarian and how she's convinced she won't see it through to the end of her mandate.
Interviewed on national radio on Tuesday, Dati counter-attacked, saying that the private telephone conversation should not have been included in the programme, and she found it regrettable that it had been used.
"I find it a little lamentable that a recorded conversation with a friend was transmitted," she said, adding that it had been at the end of a session and that the idea (of her participation in the documentary) had been not to reveal aspects of her private life.
"The clip only reflected one side of the conversation and was disconnected from the responses of my friend on the other end of the line," she continued.
As for the impression that might have been made that she was not necessarily taking the job seriously, Dati was adamant that since the recording (in September) she had attended every session of the parliament and had every right to be angry at the polemic that had surrounded the airing of the clip.
"What I said in no way reflected a lack of enthusiasm for the European parliament or the work I do here," she said.
"At no moment did I express any reservations or a lack of keenness for the European parliament.'
And just to make matters clear, Dati put the whole conversation into context; a return just after the summer break, her beginning to organise her daily schedule at the parliament and how to balance her private life with her professional one.
"The same thing wouldn't have happened to a man," she said.
"When I arrived here, my routine was followed and journalists were interested to see whether I was really present.
"I can also feel some irritation. I am also human," she added.
Ah well the polemic continues and one thing's for sure: Dati is capable of making headlines in France even if she's far away from what's happening on the domestic political front and has, as she claimed "never sought to attract the attention of the media."
Ahem.
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