Rachida Dati says she is "shocked" by Nicolas Sarkozy's exclusion from the Legion of Honour

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a close associate of Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Tuesday she was "shocked" by the former President of the Republic's exclusion from the Legion of Honour following his final sentence of one year in prison for corruption in the wiretapping affair.

"I have a lot of affection for Nicolas Sarkozy. (...) Why did that shock me? Because people draw parallels with Marshal Pétain. I find that indignity," Rachida Dati, who was propelled to the political forefront by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, declared on CNews/Europe 1.

The former president (2007-2012), also excluded from the National Order of Merit, becomes the second French head of state to be deprived of this distinction after Marshal Pétain, from whom the Legion of Honour was withdrawn after his conviction in August 1945 for high treason and intelligence with the enemy.

"He is a man (Nicolas Sarkozy) who committed himself to France. I always said: it is France that runs through his veins. We forget a major episode: (...) he saved more than twenty children during the hostage-taking of children in Neuilly (in 1993 in a nursery school in a town bordering Paris, Neuilly-sur-Seine, of which he was mayor, editor's note)," continued Rachida Dati .

"For this reason, he demonstrated an act of courage, just as he demonstrated an act of courage when he was elected President of the Republic by a majority," she emphasized. "President of the Republic is not just anyone. I believe that institutions are increasingly desacralized. I have a lot of respect for these institutions, and in particular this supreme office, which I still consider somewhat sacred," she added.