“It’s a tornado.” At the school of Chevilly-Larue (Val-de-Marne), Patricia’s eyes widen, as do the 200 people who came to attend, Thursday, May 19, the public meeting to launch the campaign for the legislative elections of Rachel Keke (without accent, she sticks to it). Support is hanging on the lips of this 48-year-old woman. Dressed in a colorful wax top, black hair with purple highlights, embellished with a pearl, the Frenchwoman from Côte d’Ivoire, born in the town of Abobo, north of Abidjan, is nicknamed “the warrior”. His main feat of arms: having stood up to the large hotel group Accor during a 22-month strike, the longest in the history of the sector, and obtained numerous rights for the chambermaids of the Ibis Clichy hotel -Batignolles, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, where she still works.
>> Legislative: follow the latest news from the campaign live
In the courtyard covered with colorful frescoes, like a great orator, the candidate of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) in the 7th district of Val-de-Marne (Fresnes, L’Haÿ-les-Roses , Rungis, Thiais and Chevilly-Larue) surveys an imaginary scene and warns: it will “shake the National Assembly”. If she is elected in mid-June, she will become the first chambermaid to enter the Palais-Bourbon hemicycle.
“You Are Warriors”, hammered the candidate to high school students a little earlier in the day, during a demonstration against the drop in the hourly allocation at the Lycée de Fresnes. Among the students who spoke with her, Nino, 17, in final year: “It’s good that a person with the experience of a struggle comes forward. She does not use language elements.” Making herself heard is the specialty of Rachel Keke, who sang for many years in gospel choirs and willingly recalls her origins from the Bété ethnic group, “known for her outspokenness”.
Until his arrival in France, “She was discreet though”, notes Tatiana, her younger sister. Rachel Keke is propelled into adult life at the age of 12, when she loses her mother, then 7 months pregnant. After this drama, she does not go back to school, “sadness”, and takes care of her four siblings. After the coup d’etat in Côte d’Ivoire in 1999, she landed in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, then in Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Hauts-de-Seine). Alternately hairdresser, cashier, home help for the elderly, Rachel Keke then became a chambermaid. For fifteen years, she cleaned up to 40 rooms a day. She then became a governess and now inspects up to 100 rooms daily.
On the morning of her candidacy baptism, Thursday, May 19, features drawn by fatigue, Rachel Keke does her dishes. From the balcony of his apartment obtained as part of the employer’s 1%, we can see a tower of nearly twenty floors which overlooks the district. Watching the cooking of her Ghanaian rice, a recipe she inherited from her father, a bus driver, she remembers her beginnings in the social struggle, during a presentation made by a trade union. Rachel Keke then works a few hours for a monthly salary of 600 euros. “I didn’t know anything about trade unionism, it immediately struck me. That day, I understood that I could be accompanied.” She ran for union elections and won. “I realized that I, too, could protect others. These women who often cannot read or write, are very small, all stunted.”
Until this strike, the longest in the history of the hotel industry. From July 2019 to May 2021, 20 people, including 17 chambermaids, two housekeepers and a team member, stand up to the Accor group. We had to picket every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. When winter comes, rain, snow and cold increase the pain caused by tendonitis “due to an accident at work”. The demonstrators resist the insults, are even sprayed with water. “I couldn’t sleep anymore”, she acknowledges. Some colleagues are under pressure and threatened with dismissal. The strikers finally win their case on almost all of their demands, supported by the CGT-HPE union: “Now I get 1,700 euros net per month, compared to 1,300 euros before”, rejoices Rachel Keke. In addition to salary increases, work rates have been reduced and lunch costs are now covered.
“I want to take my fight higher. And it’s at the Assembly that everything is decided.” The Nupes candidate summarizes her objective: “Make the invisible visible.” Maintenance staff, cashiers, security guards, garbage collectors, nurses, teachers… For these essential trades, companies make extensive use of subcontractors. And for Rachel Keke, “outsourcing is abuse.” “Those who live in precariousness must vote for the laws”pleads Sylvie Kimissa Esper, 52, friend of Rachel Keke and leader with her of the strike at the Ibis-Batignolles hotel. “For the moment, the deputies do not make the beds, they do not wash the bathroom. Rachel, she spits the truth.”
According to the figures of the National Assembly, in a hemicycle only composed of 0.4% of workers, 4% of employees and very few black people, Rachel Keke would clash. “Do you want the French that we speak at Science Po? Me, I speak in ‘banlieusard'”, she chants at the public meeting. No question of changing, promises us the one who punctuates each sentence with a smile: “If you adapt to criticism, you go crazy.”
/2022/05/25/phpLmfvxa.jpg)
Rachel Keke stays natural. One day she wears long braids, the next day short hair. It doesn’t matter if a member of his team wonders “if voters are less likely to recognize it”. Without realizing it, she tchips – a mouth noise of disapproval typical of African and West Indian cultures – when the pollen bothers her too much, as if to reprimand her. Nor does she calculate everything she says. During a work meeting where she must review the campaign documents (tractor, ballot, profession of faith), the candidate asks bluntly: “Who is he ?”pointing to the face of Julien Bayou, national secretary of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts.
And it works. “Your fight is extraordinary, I follow you on social networks”, loose a man in front of the Paul Bert school in Chevilly-Larue. At the very beginning of the day, the candidate came to tow in front of the establishment. Access to education concerns her, she who lives with four of her five children. “My son could have finished an engineer, but he couldn’t find a work-study program. As a result, he delivers meals and doesn’t want to go back to school anymore”, confides Rachel Keke, while she has lunch in front of her TV, plugged into a news channel. The children have also returned for lunch, a standoff begins with his youngest daughter, “who does not work enough” and could be steered in a direction that does not suit him.
His candidacy, however, almost never succeeded. Rachel Keke confirms that she was disgusted with politics after the strike. The newspaper The Cross (paid item)she had even assured “especially not (wanting) to get into politics”and to have “a little afraid of being recovered”. The governess keeps in particular a bitter memory of Marlène Schiappa. The former Secretary of State for Equality between Women and Men had come to visit the strikers. “She said she would stand up for us and, ultimately, she couldn’t interfere in an issue that was about privacy.”
Conversely, Rachel Keke also remembers loyal allies. There were feminist collectives, the NPA, and then several people from La France insoumise, including the deputy Eric Coquerel, who saluted his “fervor”. At the beginning of 2022, he invited her to join the Parliament of the Popular Union, a group made up of LFI activists and personalities from civil society to support Jean-Luc Mélenchon for the presidential election. A few months later, Hadi Issahnane, a volunteer activist from her constituency, contacted her again to offer her the role of leader of Nupes. Although very surprised, she accepted. “I told them I didn’t know how to do politics. I didn’t even know if the roles of incumbent and alternate were the same as in a union.”
“She could have presented herself in a more popular circo, like in Seine-Saint-Denis, but she wanted to present herself where she lives”notes Hadi Issahnan. “She did not choose the easy way, confirms another militant of the Communist Party. This constituency can swing to the right or to the left, with an electorate where there are a lot of cathos from the left, from the center left. In the first round of the presidential election, Jean-Luc Mélenchon collected 31.8% of the votes on average in the cities that make up the 7th constituency of Val-de-Marne, 10 points more than at the national level. In the legislative elections, Rachel Keke will face the former Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, candidate for the outgoing majority LREM.
“I’m not afraid of anything”says the one for whom the very idea that a cleaning lady “crushed” a former minister ready to smile. “I expect attacks. I tell a cruel truth that not everyone agrees to hear. But I’m like a soldier returning from war: I’ve already seen the worst in my struggle, I’m not afraid of anything”, she repeats. His team confirms helping him to “to gossip about questions, learn about reforms”. If she becomes a deputy, she knows that she will not be “not alone”. “I will have a team. All deputies do, right?” For the rest, Rachel Keke is already leading her boat. When she is asked about the origin of the financial aid she receives to compensate for her days not worked in this campaign month or about her personal situation, she assumes. “If I don’t want to answer or if I don’t have the answer, I don’t answer.”