Rachel Keke Is the First Female Cleaner to Be Elected as a Member of the French Parliament

Former African-American cleaner Rachel Keke was elected as a member of the French Parliament from the Left Alliance, after defeating former Minister Roxana Maracineanu, candidate of President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party, in the second round of the legislative elections held on June 19.

By winning in the 7th constituency of Val-de-Marne, facing the former Minister of Sports, Rachel Keke becomes the first female chambermaid elected to the Bourbon Palace (National Assembly).

Rachel Keke will enter the National Assembly to carry the voice of the “invisible” workers. Aged 47, the Franco-Ivorian won this Sunday as a candidate of the left-party NUPES.

With her fairly difficult background, Rachel Keke does not hide her years in the suburbs and her experience as a maid. Quite the contrary, she is proud to answer as a suburbanite if someone comes to speak to her with an arrogant academic language.

"We know the level of a chambermaid, we know that I do not have deep academic knowledge,” she explained. “I say what I feel. If someone asks me a question about something I don't understand, I won't answer. The media have to get used to that.” Keke is a woman who does not deny her roots, her childhood, and her tough beginnings in the world of work.

 

Tough Journey

Rachel Keke was born in 1974 in the commune of Abobo, north of Abidjan. Her mother was a clothing saleswoman and her father was a bus driver. Rachel Keke quickly became responsible for the family, following the death of her mother when she was 12 years old. She arrived in France in 2000 and began to do odd jobs, starting by becoming a hairdresser before entering the hotel industry.

Her arrival in France was very difficult, she moved often, between squats and friends' apartments in the Paris suburbs. Rachel Keke was naturalized as a French citizen in 2015, she confirms that it is a country she adores, a country for which her grandfather had fought during the Second World War. Today, Rachel Keke lives in the Val-de-Marne, in the Sorbiers, a city of Chevilly-Larue from where she launched her campaign for the legislative elections.

Rachel Keke continued to work as a maid in this hotel during the start of her campaign before taking time off to devote herself to the legislative elections. As a chambermaid, the deputy affirms that “it is a profession that destroys the body. There are carpal tunnel syndromes, tendonitis, back pain…” She will always remember her first day as a housekeeper, it was in 2003: “It's as if I had been given blows everywhere […] But I told myself that I had to take my courage in both hands, for my children.” A brave woman who has had a journey full of trials.

 

Anything Possible

Rachel Keke became famous during the strike of cleaners at the Ibis Batignolles Hotel in Paris, between 2019 and 2021, of which she was an iconic figure. Then she became a well-known trade union figure.

Now a parliamentarian, following a historic victory, the 47-year-old Franco-Ivorian has promised to bring the voice of what she called the “invisible” workers to the Bourbon Palace (National Assembly).

After her mother passed away in 1986, at the age of 12, Rachel Keke found herself responsible for her brothers and sisters.

In 2000, an Ivorian immigrant arrived in France at the age of 26. She started working as a hairdresser before entering the hotel world. Like many immigrants, her path in France was not at all easy at the beginning.

Fifteen years after arriving in France, Rachel Keke finally obtained French citizenship in 2015. A country she says she "adores" and that her grandfather fought for during World War II.

 “I am proud to tell black women that anything is possible,” she told The Associated Press.

Keke worked as a cleaner in a hotel for over 15 years, before working her way up to the next career ladder, becoming a housekeeper's team manager. She said that after starting to work in a hotel in northwest Paris, she saw how the demands of cleaning hotel rooms threatened the physical and mental health of the people she supervised.

She thinks it is "time" for key workers to have a voice in Parliament. 'Most MPs don't know the value of essential workers who are suffering,' said the candidate, who suffers from recurring tendonitis in their arm from their job as a cleaner and still runs as a housekeeper at a hotel.

 

Fiercest Battle

In 2019, Keke, along with around 20 housekeepers, mostly migrant women from sub-Saharan Africa, fought against the French hotel giant Accor for better working conditions and wages. She led a mass strike that lasted 22 months and ended with a pay rise.

The fierce but victorious battle of hotel workers has inspired many. Invited by far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon's party, Keke agreed to run in the parliamentary race "to be the voice of the voiceless.”

"Most of the people who take public transport at 4 a.m. are immigrants. I support them too," she said.

She joined Melenchon's party NUPES, during the presidential campaign that resulted in Macron's re-election in May, then became a member of the new Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale (New Ecologic and Social People's Union), the left-wing coalition trying to limit the power of the President in Parliament.

Keke claimed that if she is elected, she will be able to support one of the key elements of the alliance's platform: an increase in the French minimum monthly wage from around 1,300 ($1,361) to 1,500 euros ($1,570).