Madame Minister

But at 44, this left-wing feminist with no higher education is one of the highest-ranking Muslim women in France, with overall responsibility for bringing new hope to the poor, angry banlieues 8212; the working-class suburbs of immigrants 8212; that burst into flames three years ago, shocking the country.

This month, Amara will be the centre of a meeting of all government ministers on the problems of the banlieues 8212; health care, transportation, law enforcement and education in what she calls the 8220;lost territories of the republic8221;. Amara, one of 10 children whose Algerian father is illiterate, is supposed to be, as she says, 8220;the leader of the orchestra8221;.

Amara, a practicing Muslim who rarely bothers with makeup, never went to college and never married, retains the strong accent of an Arab immigrant and sometimes uses slang. Voluble and articulate, she was quick to criticise a Lille judge who recently annulled a marriage between Muslims because the bride had lied about being a virgin, and called the ruling 8220;a real fatwa against the emancipation and liberty of women.8221;

Once a Socialist, Amara was disgusted with the party8217;s taste for luxury and its endless leadership battles. But she would never have voted for Mr. Sarkozy. A self-described 8220;militant,8221; she found her way into politics through a very different and much angrier route.

In 1978, when she was 14, in the housing project near Clermont-Ferrand where she was born, she saw her brother, Malik, 5, killed by a drunk driver. She saw the police side with the driver and, 8220;most important, I saw the police use racist remarks toward my parents, particularly my mom,8221; she said. For her, 8220;It was a very violent seizure of conscience,8221; she has said.

She became a fierce campaigner against racism and for women8217;s rights 8212; including within her own Arab, Muslim community. Offended by cases of gang rape and immolation for perceived immoral behavior, Amara organised a rally for women8217;s rights in 2003 that concluded with some 30,000 people marching on Paris.

She took one of the marchers8217; slogans 8212; 8220;Ni Putes, Ni Soumises Neither whores nor submissives8221; 8212; as the name for her new organisation. The organisation was about liberation, Amara has explained, but also about protecting women from violence and traditional patriarchal behaviour brought from colonial and tribal societies like her own, in Algeria. 8220;We fought the Islamists, and we slowed their spread,8221; she said. 8220;Our tenets defend equality, condemn cultural relativism and combat archaic traditions,8221; like those that interpreted a young woman wearing a skirt as available for gang rape.

8220;I8217;m universalist. I believe strongly in the values of the republic 8212; liberty, equality, fraternity and secularism,8221; she said. 8220;The citizens who live in these priority neighbourhoods for which I have responsibility need to feel like full citizens.8221;

While the poor and working classes are heavily concentrated in urban ghettos in the United States, the French equivalents are these suburban satellite towns, full of cheap or badly maintained public housing, in which immigrants are concentrated and the police enter gingerly, if at all.

8220;De facto we are in a situation in which an active, visible minority has taken the majority hostage,8221; she said.

Amara is concerned by the growing power of radical Islam among unemployed youth, on the margins, listening to preachers in what she called 8220;the Islam of the basements.8221; 8220;It8217;s a problem that has grown these past years,8221; she said. 8220;Our young are in a situation of psychological fragility, and why? Because many of them do not have work and have trouble inscribing themselves into a future, and some who are too fragile become jihadists.8221;

She believes the radicals are an isolated minority. 8220;But it is not normal that today in my country a part of the youth who live in these banlieues have as their future unemployment, prison or Islamism.8221;