MONTLHERY, 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 slums 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 famously referred to unruly immigrant youth as "scum" two years ago, the projects erupted into France's worst riots in decades.
Six months after his election, the ubiquitous 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 very public face of the 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 advisors who defected from left-leaning parties to join up.
But fissures are starting to appear in the united front, and the outspoken Amara is at the leading edge. This week, she stirred such a virulent public debate among Sarkozy allies over his immigration policy that the president had to call for "everyone to calm down."
The debate centered on a controversial 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 became 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 was also taunted by Socialists, who urged her to go ahead and resign.
Amara isn't leaving just yet.
The 43-year-old can usually be found in a black pantsuit, hanging out in stairwells and community halls, talking to unemployed kids and their parents. With her thick curly hair pulled back in a clip and wearing no makeup, she has been traversing France as Sarkozy's envoy in the banlieue.
Next month, she is expected to deliver a plan for the government to rehabilitate the slums.
