Le Zephyr is not the kind of place I would imagine meeting Fadela Amara, the outspoken French civil rights activist and now government minister. She is best known for her work in the country’s tough immigrant suburbs, and this brasserie, in the rapidly gentrifying 20th arrondissement, is an elegant place with gilded mirrors, dark wood panelling and burgundy leather banquettes.

The “ghetto warrior” – as one newspaper dubbed her – has become a lot more “establishment” in recent months after crossing party lines to become Nicolas Sarkozy’s new junior minister of urban policy.