Najat Belkacem is the first woman to become French Minister of Education. She is the youngest Minister (36) as well as the first Muslim Minister.
While some are too busy shouting ban migrants, Najat Belkacem quietly reminds us that immigrants are an asset.
Shepherd girl in Morocco
Najat Belkacem was born in the Moroccan countryside in 1977. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem’s childhood home was an isolated farmhouse with red earth walls and a thatched roof.
Her earliest memories are of helping her grandfather tend to his flock of goats and gathering water from the nearby well with her older sister.
Migrated to France
Her father, Ahmed, had immigrated to the northern French town of Abbeville as a building worker before she was born. When Vallaud-Belkacem was four, her father found a better job and he sent for his wife and two daughters to join him.
Cultural shock
Settling in a suburb of Amiens, some 80 miles north of Paris, Vallaud-Belkacem felt the full shock of a new culture.
She didn’t speak a word of French and remembers being stunned by the vast number of cars—a vehicle she had rarely seen before.
Focus on studies
Her father set strict rules: Vallaud-Belkacem and her sister were forbidden to flirt with boys or to go out to nightclubs before the age of eighteen. Vallaud-Belkacem poured all of her energy into her studies.
She read books constantly and her favourite moment of the week was when the mobile lending library pulled up to her block. She developed good fluency in French within a few years.
Paris Institute of Political Studies
When she wanted to apply for the Paris Institute of Political Studies, her teacher discouraged her from applying, saying it was out of her reach.
But she took the entrance exam anyway and passed. She learnt every skills needed for her future career from this prestigious Institute.
Determined to succeed in politics
Najat became determined to succeed in politics when she observed the rise of Le Pen and the right wing in France.
She joined the Socialist Party in 2002. She was part of the team of Lyon mayor who fought against discrimination and for promotion of citizen rights. In 2005, she became adviser to the Socialist Party.
On 16 May 2012, she was appointed to French President Francois Hollande's cabinet as Minister of Women's Rights.
On 25 August 2014 she became the first French woman to be appointed Minister of Education, Higher Education, and Research, joining the second Valls government.
Rising above all humiliations
Politics in France has always been a white man’s business. You rarely see women or people of diverse races in positions of power.
She recalls how at her first fundraiser as she welcomed guests in and took their coats many of them mistook her for the house maid.
“Still today in our society a young woman with dark skin who opens the door in a bourgeois area has to be a servant,” she wrote.
Today, she’s called in the international media as “The New Face of France.” The right education and determination to fight against all challenges literally prove that for any person from any humble background the sky is the limit.
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