I'm writing to you today because, like many of you, I'm experiencing the grave and uncertain electoral period we're going through with pain and anguish. I am writing to all those French people who will never be French enough for the Rassemblement National (RN): naturalized citizens, those with dual nationality – whether they have chosen to be French or are forced to be by the nationality rules of their birthplace – and all those who, born and living in France for decades, sons and daughters of immigrants, French citizens from overseas territories, never really have the right first name, the right religion, the right skin color for the far right. Today, more than ever, we have a target on our backs.

This is a daughter of immigrants speaking to you, born in a Moroccan village in the Rif mountains, who came to France at the age of 4 with her mother and family to join her father, a construction worker. I know what I owe to the country, to its public schools, to the books that broadened my horizons, to the charity and political structures with which I have become involved. This country is mine, it is ours.

I've never worn my identity slung over my shoulder, because I wanted to be a free woman and not let anyone box me into my origins; and also, like many of us, to blend in, to be judged for my actions and not for where my family comes from.

Fighting for equality

When I became a minister, I realized that it wasn't that easy and that no matter how far we pushed our "integration," it only aroused the anger of the populist right, who targeted us far more than our colleagues, and always differently. I knew that the weak-minded and narrow-minded were on the lookout for the slightest pretext to caricature us as unsuitable, dangerous or threatening.

My life story is just one testimony among the destinies of immigrants in France. I know all about the difficulties that society has placed in our path, about the illusions of meritocracy when it remains distorted by social elitism. I know about discrimination and racism, which are by no means residual. For us, the fight for equality is always harder, longer and more painful. But, in a republic that lays claim to equality and fraternity, it has always been possible and has been waged with the support of the law, the vigilance of associations and unions, and the support of citizens. All this is under threat right now.

It's all been in the making for a long time. How many times in recent years have we gritted our teeth at the "great debates on national identity," which have turned into xenophobic venting grounds? How many times have we had to endure the permanent instrumentalization of the slightest crime to stigmatize minorities as a whole, rather than holding their perpetrators responsible and seriously addressing their causes? As if crime, fanaticism, or violence against women were genuinely tied to someone's skin color.

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