Olivier Klein is the new interministerial delegate for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism and anti-LGBT hatred (Dilcrah). The former Minister of Housing, who was appointed this Wednesday August 30 by the Council of Ministers, will take office on Friday September 1. He will therefore succeed Sophie Elizéon at the head of this organization attached to Matignon.
“The subject of discrimination has been at the heart of my associative and political commitments for almost forty years, and the fight against discrimination linked to origin or sexual orientation seems to me extremely important in the period to come”, he said. he assured this Wednesday. At the head of the Dilcrah “there are two roadmaps: one, on the fight against discrimination linked to origin; the other on discrimination against LGBT people. These two roadmaps are already ready, we will have to bring them to life”.
“Testing is one of the things announced in the Neighborhoods 2030 plan” initiated by President Emmanuel Macron at the end of June in Marseille, he added, underlining his “sensitivity on the issue of working-class neighborhoods and the discrimination that may their inhabitants”. “All of this will be at the heart of my action,” he promised.
First a member of the Communist Party, this professor of physics and chemistry joined the PS in 2006 before being elected in 2011 mayor of Clichy-sous-Bois, a deprived city of Seine-Saint-Denis at the heart of the urban violence of 2005 He himself grew up in the Chêne-Pointu district, regularly touted as one of the most degraded condominiums in France.
After fifteen years in the socialist camp, Olivier Klein came closer and then supported Emmanuel Macron. At 56, he left his previous post last July, after twelve months at the head of the ministry. During this period, he had striven to make his area of expertise exist, a potential “social bomb” in the eyes of Bercy and the Élysée.
He also headed the board of directors of the National Agency for Urban Renewal (Anru) between 2017 and 2022 and was vice-president of the Métropole du Grand Paris, delegate for housing and diversity.