French politician brings Paris glamour to Iraq vote

Rachida Dati, the first Muslim woman to hold a top job in the French government, brought a touch of Parisian glamour yesterday to Iraq's elections with a stroll along the Tigris river in Baghdad.

Dati was in the Iraqi capital in her capacity as a European MP observing the elections to help ensure the second parliamentary vote since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003 is free and fair.

Followed by a bevy of French journalists and heavily armed guards from the French embassy, she took a sunset promenade through a riverside park full of picnicking families at the foot of the bomb-shattered Sheraton hotel.

"It's important that (foreign) politicians be present in Iraq to take stock of its rapid evolution in terms of democratisation, the will of the people to have a strong Iraq, a sovereign Iraq and a democratic Iraq," she said.