Rachida Dati: the Sarkozy protege who aims to become mayor of Paris

Rachida Dati's career has had some spectacular ups and downs, but she has never made any secret of her ambition for high office. Now that drive is being directed towards one of France's most prestigious jobs, mayor of Paris, a post viewed as a good springboard to becoming president.

Last week in an interview with the Observer, Dati, 47, spoke of her admiration for London's mayor, Boris Johnson, and outlined her vision for the French city of light. Johnson, she said, had "modernised" the British capital and given it renewed international prestige.

"He thinks globally about Greater London, even though the city is 1,500 square kilometres, while Paris is only 150 square kilometres and we are thinking small. In Paris, things are seen in terms of arrondissement by arrondissement. We don't have a global vision of the city, of a Grande Paris."

The Paris of recent years, and by that she means the 12-year tenure of Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, has been one of negativity, division and exclusion, she says. "Here we have west Paris against east Paris, poor Paris against rich Paris. Nobody ever gets all the mayors together and says, now what can we do for Paris as a whole? There are 25,000 children waiting for places in a creche and yet city hall spends €1bn (£870m) redesigning Les Halles; there are 200,000 needing homes, and they close the roads along the Seine to traffic at a cost of some €40m. Money is spent on elitist cultural projects while there are housing estates like the back end of the world where people are trapped in highrise flats because the lifts don't work.

"More than €1bn is spent on a tramway round Paris, but nothing is done to improve overcrowding on the Metro, which is used by most Parisians. Politics is about choices, but there's no logic in any of this."

She adds: "Paris has become so expensive that only the very rich and the very poor in local authority housing can afford to live here. It's a deliberate policy of exclusion."

Dati wants to end what she sees as "cultural elitism" and a two-class Paris, build affordable housing to entice back the middle classes and make the provision of creches, social clubs and sports facilities a requirement for all new construction projects. "It's about giving Paris back to Parisians", as she puts it.

Asked how she will fund her programme, Dati gives a dismissive wave of the hand. "Paris is a rich city. Taxes have increased, but life has not improved for Parisians. We are not getting value for money."

The former justice minister – who juggles being a Euro MP, mayor of the chic 7th arrondissement of Paris, and France's most famous single mother to a four-year-old daughter whose paternity is at the centre of a court battle – is one of three women who are said to want the mayor's job.

She is squaring up for a serious battle. The one-time "Sarkozette", the patronising tag attached to former president Nicolas Sarkozy's female ministers and a Gallic form of Blair's Babes, has been a scrapper all her life.

Punching some considerable way above her weight has its roots in her background. It might seem patronising to point out that Dati is the daughter of an illiterate north African immigrant labourer, were it not for the fact that she is doing the pointing out.

This particular political scrap, however, is set to be bloody. Among the other possible candidates is another former Sarkozette and minister, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.

The rightwing UMP, already bitterly riven by an unresolved leadership crisis, is anxious to avoid yet another damaging internecine tussle, but Dati has no intention of giving way. "It's complicated," she admits, sitting in her grand mayoral office. "The leadership battle has left scars and the party would no doubt prefer not to have a primary election for a candidate."

Dati is dismissive of her party rival, Kosciusko-Morizet, 40, known by her initials NKM, and even more scathing about the third woman candidate, Socialist Anne Hildalgo, Delanoë's appointed successor and the current poll favourite. "She's never been elected, but she's the designated heir, that says it all," Dati splutters with scorn.

Like Boris Johnson, Dati has faced criticism that, as a member of her country's political elite, she has no clue how the less privileged she aims to represent live. Posing in Chanel and Dior for Paris Match after she was named justice minister did not help.

She says such barbs are meaningless. "I know all of Paris, from the well-off arrondissements to the poor. I visit all areas, I will campaign in all areas, and if I am elected I will represent all Parisians," she insists.

If she wins the 2014 mayoral vote, Dati will almost certainly look across the Channel for ideas. The elegant Frenchwoman cites Johnson's efforts to tackle crime, improvements in London's public transport, and the increase in security cameras as meriting her particular approval.

Asked if she has met Johnson, however, Dati replies with a baffling non sequitur. "Well, you know, I liked Jack Straw very much." She pauses: "In terms of appearance Boris Johnson might be regarded as fantasque [whimsical, bizarre].

"But Monsieur Johnson was elected by the people of London, and the people of London are not stupid," she says.

If Dati does succeed in becoming the first female mayor of Paris, and Dati often gets what she wants, it will also be more proof, if proof is needed, of just how determined a scrapper she really is.

She is certainly up for a fight. "I have been built on challenge, defiance, resistance and, yes, defeat. I have put in lots of work and lots of fighting. Everything was against me: my social background, my origins, the fact that I'm a woman. But I have shown a great capacity to resist and overcome," she says.

"Nobody can push me aside, eliminate me. I am too resistant."