Muslim feminist riles Sarkozy's inner circle

MONTLHÉRY, France - Every day, Fadela Amara, a small woman with what she calls "a big mouth," plunges into tough immigrant neighborhoods where her boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, dares not go.

A high-school dropout from the ghetto who became a celebrated feminist, Amara acts as the message and messenger to a world where France's new president is reviled: Soon after Sarkozy referred to unruly immigrant youths as "scum" two years ago, the projects erupted in the worst riots here in decades.

Six months after his election, Sarkozy has yet to call on the suburban slums the French call "les banlieues."

Instead, he sends Amara. She is France's new minister of urban affairs, a public face of center-right Sarkozy's attempt at inclusive government. Of his top lieutenants, she is one of three Muslims, seven women, and more than a dozen advisers who defected from left-leaning parties to join up.

But fissures are starting to appear in the united front, and Amara is at the leading edge. She recently stirred such a virulent debate among Sarkozy allies over his immigration policy that the president had to call for "everyone to calm down."

The debate centered on a proposal to force immigrants to submit to DNA tests to prove they have relatives here. Amara questioned the fundamental legitimacy of the legislation and, by inference, the politicians who proposed it.

"I've had enough of seeing immigration exploited all the time, for very clear reasons," she said on a radio show. "I think it's disgusting." Later she said she would resign if her disagreements with the government's policy become unbearable.

Conservatives from Sarkozy's party, already edgy over her critiques - often delivered with jabbing finger and ghetto slang - quickly scolded Amara. "She should think before she uses words against what the Parliament debates and decides," one party leader said. She also was taunted by Socialists, who urged her to go ahead and resign.

Amara isn't leaving just yet.

The 43-year-old usually can be found wearing an all-black pantsuit, hanging out in stairwells and community halls, talking to unemployed youths and their parents. Next month, she is expected to deliver a plan for the government to revive the slums.

But does she really believe a president facing a $59 billion deficit will come through with the money and leadership to turn around the lives of those who feel forgotten in French society?

"In the mind of the president of the republic," Amara said, "there's a real desire to change the situation in the banlieues. That's why I, a leftist woman, chose to become a part of a government that's on the political right: Because there is a crisis."

And, despite the frictions within the government, Amara has stood by her boss: "He respects my convictions, as I respect his, even though I don't share them."

On a recent day, Amara sat at a table in Montlhery, a rural town about an hour's drive south of Paris, with about a dozen poorly educated teenagers. They were jobless but attending a regimented state school to get basic skills.

"So it's cool here?" she began.

Yes, the students answered.

"It's not bad to be treated like everyone else, is it?" said Amara, who appreciates being treated like the others around Sarkozy's ministerial table.

Throughout the brief meeting with the students, Amara made it clear that she was like them. Really, she couldn't stand to get up at 5 a.m. like they must every morning; she knows what it's like to endure peer pressure; she knows the atmosphere of violence and disappointment where they come from.

But she is not for easy solutions. Discipline and hard work are the way to find jobs, and she has "zero tolerance against slacking off."

These young people must claim their citizenship, because exclusion is no longer acceptable.