Three times a week, an elevator whisks Halima to a world far removed from her home in the gritty Sarcelles suburb north of Paris – the ritzy Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.
“I never imagined being here one day,” said Halima, one of 15 immigrant women selected for a culinary training course in the overwhelmingly masculine world of master chef Alain Ducasse’s Parisian restaurants.
“For me, French cuisine was another world. I just wanted to get a job to bring money home at the end of the month,” Halima, 40, said as she put finishing touches on some hors d’oeuvres in the bustling kitchen.
For her part, 34-year-old Linda makes her way three days a week to the Plaza Athenee, a luxury hotel in the ultra-chic eighth arrondissement of Paris.
Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athenee is one of three Ducasse restaurants boasting the top nod of three stars from the prestigious Michelin guide.
Both women learned of the programme through word of mouth, Halima from an acquaintance at her youngest son’s day care centre, Linda through a community worker.
To be eligible the women had to be immigrants or born to immigrant parents, and either unemployed or working odd jobs.
Halima, a petite brunette who arrived in France barely a year ago from Oran in northwestern Algeria and has four children, had worked brief stints as a secretary, a mother’s helper and cleaning airplanes at Charles de Gaulle airport.
Mr Ducasse’s programme, Quinze Femmes en Avenir (Fifteen Women in the Future) attracted 85 applicants, all from Sarcelles. It is a poor, sombre town geographically 16 kilometres from Paris, but separated by a gulf of culture and wealth. One in three of the inhabitants is under 20, one in five out of work, more than twice the national average, and 90 nationalities coexist.
In Sarcelles, as in much of France, to have a foreign-sounding name, to be of overseas origin, to be a Muslim makes the hard task of finding a satisfying job tougher still. Talk of liberty, equality and fraternity can sound hollow.
Asked why Ducasse set up the scheme his staff say he wanted to “offer women in difficult social and personal circumstances a vision for the future” and give them the “keys to reaching a lasting job”.
The project is linked to former US President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative which suggested that the superstar chef might train women as part of the initiative’s search for “innovative solutions to meet the great challenges of our time”.
Limda actually had some experience in the field – working as a temp making meals for Air France personnel – and was keen to discover the universe of fine food.
Working towards their certificate of professional aptitude in cuisine, for which they must pass an exam in May, Linda and Halima must be proficient at cooking up such refined dishes as coq au vin, entrecote sautee Bercy and poularde pochee sauce supreme.
“Linda cooks like a mother, with sincerity and love,” Christophe Saintagne, chef at the Plaza Athenee, said. “The goal is not to turn her into a chef but to teach her professionalism, rigour and organisation.
As for Halima, she “is willing, punctual and does not shy away from the task”, Benoit Ducauze, sous chef at the Jules Verne, said. “But she now must take initiatives. She is still a bit too reticent.”
Their dream? To open their own restaurant, in Sarcelles for Linda and in the south of France for Halima.
In the meantime, if they obtain their certificates, the programme assures them of a job with Mr Ducasse.