Rachida Dati, a former French culture minister, has gone on trial in Paris on corruption charges linked to dealings with the Renault-Nissan carmaking group.

Dati, 60, is accused of illegal lobbying when she accepted €900,000 (£770,000) in lawyer’s fees from a Netherlands-based subsidiary of Renault-Nissan while she was a member of the European parliament. The court will have to decide what the money was for.

Dati’s legal team denied all corruption allegations, saying she worked “exclusively” as a lawyer for the Renault-Nissan subsidiary. French prosecutors argue that she was instead paid to lobby for the carmaking group, an activity that is banned for members of the European parliament. Prosecutors said there was a lack of evidence to show Dati had carried out legal work.

Dati was placed under investigation in 2019 on suspicion of illegally lobbying for Renault-Nissan between October 2009 and February 2013, when she was an MEP.

Dati is on trial with Carlos Ghosn, the disgraced former Renault-Nissan chief, who will be tried in absentia. Ghosn, 72, was detained in Japan in November 2018 amid allegations of financial misconduct in a separate case involving a plot to falsify records about his personal pay in order to enrich himself. He dodged trial in Japan after escaping to Lebanon in an audio equipment case. He has denied all wrongdoing in the Japan case as well as in the Dati case.

French prosecutors argue that a legal services contract signed in 2009 between Dati and Ghosn, in which Dati was paid an annual fee of €300,000, was used to disguise lobbying work. Investigators obtained the contract in 2019 during a search of Renault’s headquarters after Ghosn’s arrest in Japan.

Dati, 60, who is the district mayor of the 7th arrondissement in Paris, is one of the most prominent figures on the French right. She was the first woman of north African and Muslim heritage to hold a major French government post when she was appointed justice minister by the rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy. She returned to government under Emmanuel Macron, as culture minister.

Dati redefined political celebrity in France, and has said growing up as the second of 11 children on a low-income housing estate on the outskirts of Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy gave her a greater understanding of the French electorate. She ran for mayor of Paris earlier this year, but lost to the Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire.

If convicted, Dati faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to €450,000. She could also face a five-year ban on holding public office.

Dati’s lawyers said: “Unfounded allegations of influence peddling in the European parliament stem from an artificial intellectual construct devised by the prosecution.”

In a separate investigation, Dati has been accused of accepting nearly €300,000 in undeclared payments from the energy group GDF Suez, also while an MEP. Prosecutors said last year they were looking into reports Dati failed to declare jewellery and watches worth €420,000 upon taking ministerial office.

She has denied any wrongdoing in all cases.