Like Jacques Attali, Fadela Amara, the French secretary of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, has been enjoying continuous media coverage and public attention for several weeks. She was one of two Muslim women appointed to ministerial posts after Sarkozy's election last May (the other being Minister of Justice Rachida Dati).
Amara's superior, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Christine Boutin, has on the other hand been receiving unwelcome negative publicity in recent weeks when she was accused by DAL (Right to Housing) of not providing sufficient housing for the underclass, primarily immigrants. Her response was that she could not do everything at once, but that her promises would be kept in due time.
It was then learned that one of Boutin's key assistants in the ministry, Jean-Paul Bolufer, was living in an elegant apartment in a good neighborhood, but paying 4 to 5 times less than the market value. More specifically, he lived in 190 square meters at 6.30 euros the square meter. When the news leaked out he turned in his resignation.
The scandal was just the fuel the right-to-housing organizations needed to put pressure on the ministry for more housing and more social programs. At the center of these demands is Fadela Amara. She is the founder of the organization Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Slaves), created to help the Muslim women of the ghettoes. Later, she became a Socialist councilor. Last June, though still a Socialist councilor, Nicolas Sarkozy made her a member of the cabinet. Today, the rather disorderly, often Arab-speaking, pugnacious Amara is receiving the lion's share of publicity in her ministry.