Read Charles Bremner on the rumours around Rachida Dati

They were promoted to inject youth, colour and feminine flair into President Sarkozy’s Government. However, rivalry between his favourite woman minister and her young Cabinet rival appears to have led to the latter being dropped from a state visit to China.

Rachida Dati, 42, right, the French Justice Minister, who has almost become Mr Sarkozy’s consort on foreign trips, was reported yesterday to have vetoed the presence of Rama Yade, 31, left, the junior Minister for Human Rights, on the flight to Beijing.

The reports added to public fascination over the relationship between the newly divorced Mr Sarkozy and his petite protégée of Algerian and Moroccan background.

Ms Dati, who joined the party of seven ministers, 40 business leaders, Mr Sarkozy’s mother and a son, had arrived alone with him at a White House dinner this month and was his partner at a state banquet in Morocco last month. The absence of the outspoken Ms Yade had been viewed as a sign that Mr Sarkozy wanted to avoid ruffling Chinese sensitivity over human rights. Miss Yade, who comes from Senegal, made an undiplomatic remark this month about France being a nation with full rights, unlike China and Russia. Le Parisien newspaper, however, said: “The real reason is more prosaic. It seems to spring from the rivalry between Rama Yade and Rachida Dati . . . The atmosphere between the two is electric.”

Ms Yade had been due to be in the China party, but was dropped because “Dati is understood to have taken a dim view of her presence in Beijing”, it added.

France is intrigued by the influence on Mr Sarkozy of Ms Dati. He has stood firmly by her as her ministry, judges and lawyers have rebelled against what they depict as her high-handed ways. The judges and lawyers are threatening to strike against her plans to close up to 100 courts and tribunals as part of Mr Sarkozy’s reform programme.

Mr Sarkozy paid glowing tribute to her as she appeared on a popular talk show and has even called her “ma beurette” — “my little Arab girl”.

Rumoured to be a very close friend of Cécilia Sarkozy, Ms Dati spent the summer holidays with the still-married Sarkozys in New Hampshire. After their divorce, she went with the President to Cardiff to watch France beat New Zealand in the rugby World Cup. Ms Dati and Ms Yade, are both non-politicians, but Mr Sarkozy has launched his Justice Minister’s political career by making her a candidate for his Union for a Popular Movement in council elections next spring.

A celebrity magazine said recently: “Rachida Dati fascinates with her vitality, her courage, her generous capacity to charm. She is . . . a cutting from the Sarkozy tree.”

While gossip about a romantic link flows on the internet and over dinner tables, political insiders say that Mr Sarkozy’s relationship is of professional friendship with a woman whom he sees as a young sister because she shares his ambition.

Ms Dati ascribes criticism of her to envy, racism and chauvinism. She has defended herself this month in a book-length interview with a journalist. “My life is not a beautiful story. I am not the heroine of an instructive novel to present to the people so they can shed a tear or to encourage them to work hard,” she says in the book Je Vous Fais Juges.

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• 'Was it real?' The US bailout nightmare
• Iranian opposition plays the long game