AT a dinner party this week in the moneyed 16th arrondissement, a distinguished French journalist leaned over to me and whispered: "I've got great gossip for you." He whispered a name in my ear and said: "It's the truth." The revelation was so un-French that I nearly choked on my prosciutto.

The gossip had to do with Rachida Dati, the glamourpuss Minister of Justice, who is heavily pregnant. And single. And not telling who's the daddy.

Ms Dati, who turns 43 next week, has long been controversial. When Nicolas Sarkozy chose her as justice chief in May 2007, he praised her as a "symbol": she was the first ever senior minister of North African origin, as well as being a woman. But it was not long before Dati behaved badly: cat fights with Carla Bruni (Dati was rumoured to be an ex-flame of Sarko's); her endless stream of Dior dresses, posing for Paris Match, taking freebies; her schoolmarmish manner.

Then came the pregnancy. Immediately, speculation went into overdrive. Former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar went public to deny paternity. Other names are being tossed around. It may be an old boyfriend called Henry Proglio, which seems unlikely as she dumped him last winter; or a hotel chain owner, or a TV host.

But while French newsrooms have apparently known for weeks who the daddy is, they are keeping mum - despite being in a lather of excitement.

One French radio host commented shrewdly that if Dati were an English minister, the Anglo-Saxon press would have "X-rayed Rachida Dati's pregnancy to the point of producing the father's ID papers or DNA". It is indeed hard to imagine the pregnant Dati cruising around the White House or Westminster, carrying her neat little bump and her portfolio, and the press staying silent.

Actually I don't care who the father is, or- another option being cruelly discussed on French blogs - whether Dati used a sperm bank. She has longed for a child for some time; she is a free woman. No: the problem is more simply that she has failed at her job. This week the France 2 TV channel devoted an entire segment of its main news bulletin to magistrates wearily complaining about how awful she was.

Then the camera switched to Dati, belly bursting out of a tight purple cashmere dress, smiling and posing. Woman, stop it! At least we only have a few weeks more of such posturing now. But the daddy may remain a mystery longer than that.

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