The embattled Justice Minister of France held crisis talks with senior judges yesterday in an effort to stave off a revolt that threatens to paralyse the judicial system.

Rachida Dati, a Muslim of North African origin, was plucked from relative obscurity by President Nicolas Sarkozy with a brief to modernise the legal system. But the 41-year-old has clashed repeatedly with prominent figures of the legal Establishment, who accuse her of undermining the independence of the judiciary.

Seven advisers have quit her office, reportedly in exasperation at her authoritarian style of management. “There is a threatening, heavy atmosphere, a climate of fear,” a former adviser told Le Monde yesterday. “She has a form of brutality,” said another.

Mrs Dati has suffered the indignity of becoming the first Justice Minister to be summoned for questioning by the Higher Judicial Council on Friday. It comes after she clashed publicly with a state prosecutor who criticised a law to introduce minimum sentences for repeat offenders.

Seeking to impose her authority, Mrs Dati said that she was “head of the prosecutors” – a statement criticised by many jurists as a slight on the constitutional separation of powers in France.

The daughter of a Moroccan bricklayer and an Algerian housewife, Mrs Dati is popular with voters for rising through society to become the first person of immigrant origin to run a key ministry, having started her working life as a home help. She also retains the support of President Sarkozy.

Rama Yade, another woman minister of immigrant origin, faced calls for her resignation yesterday for appearing to challenge her Government’s law-and-order policy with a visit to squatters outside Paris.

Mrs Yade, 30, the UnderSecretary for Human Rights, visited African immigrants camping in the street after being expelled from an illegal squat in council flats north of Paris.

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