A French politician has hit back after it was suggested her daughter was "less French" than other children because she had named her after her mother, reports BBC News.
Rachida Dati reacted angrily after journalist Eric Zemmour criticised her choice of name for seven-year-old daughter Zohra. He said it was unpatriotic because it did not come from an official list of French Christian names.
Ms Dati, a former justice minister, said the comments were "pathological".
Zemmour appeared on French television channel LCI on Monday, demanding the return of a law restricting the names children are given. The law was abolished in 1993, 200 years after it was brought in by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Zemmour - who also told the channel he felt Front National party leader Marine Le Pen was not far enough to the Right - said non-Christian names like Zohra, and that of football legend Zinedine Zidane, made their bearers "less French" than himself.
He also admitted to confronting Ms Dati, who is of North African origin, over her choice of name to her face. "She called her daughter Zohra," he said. "I find it outrageous and I told her."
But Ms Dati, who was minister of justice under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has defended her choice of name.
"Do you find it scandalous to give your mother's name to your children?" she asked the BFMTV channel.