President Nicolas Sarkozy asked him to enter the French Government in 2007 but he refused, preferring to focus on his social activism.
Joining SOS Racisme in 1984, he became its vice-president from 1985 to 1992 and founded the Grigny Maison des Potes ("mate's house" — emergency accommodation) and the Banlieues du Monde association.
On 6 February 1990, he appeared on the TV talk show Ciel, mon mardi !, a program that specialised in confrontation between people with opposing views.
[9] During his time as head of SOS Racisme, he conducted an ongoing fight against violence in poor suburbs which he branded "self-destructive and nihilist" in his Propositions pour un véritable Plan Marshall pour les Banlieues ("Proposals for a real Marshall Plan for the Suburbs")[10] because it was preventing the emancipation of a generation and could only end in failure.
He declared himself in favour of quotas in line with a strategy of codevelopment creating a legal stream of immigration and regulating flows of migrants.
Following the Le Mans Congress, faced with a social crisis and questions of national identity, he defended the ideal of a "mixed-blood Republic" (République métissée).
According to him, It is the mixed-blood Republic that must be the new flag to unite the whole French population, which can make our nation not one that is pointed out because of its unrest, but as a country that, true to its historic tradition, again opens a new page of history which enables bringing people together,…which will lead to a hope in the world which will be an alternative to that shock of civilisations, to the technicalities of religions, to the shock of difference, but more than that to a convergence of aspirations.
Close to Julien Dray, also a former member of SOS Racisme, he supported Ségolène Royal as Socialist Party candidate in the 2007 French Presidential election.
"[15] Malek Boutih was chosen as candidate for the Charente's 4th constituency in the 2007 Legislative elections on 1 July 2006 at the national congress of the Socialist Party.
Almost all of the elected Socialists in the department made publicly known their hostility to his candidature and their willingness to block him since he was parachuted into the position.
[16] The First Federal Secretary had effectively organised a consultative vote in the constituency between candidates Martine Pinville and Jeanne Filloux, before Malek Boutih's appointment.
He felt that he had been beaten by his own party[11] and severely criticised its leaders "who formed a clique that disliked society as it was, who cannot see themselves as part of it and who cling to the melancholy of the 1970s.
He rebuked them for having skimmed over the debate on diversity and not having taken it up seriously, like other subjects of real concern to French people: violence, work, the right to social emancipation, identity.
[19][20] In February 2015 the Prime Minister Manuel Valls named Malek Boutih as parliamentarian assigned to consider the analysis and prevention of "new generations turning to terrorism in connection with jihadist networks".
The time has come for determined action to enforce the Republican project… Public action in response to radicalism must be part of a plan of counter-attack, giving the Republic all of its strength and all of its appeal.Warmly welcomed by members of the opposition, but more discretely by the Socialist majority, this report was criticised especially for its sources, such as Frigid Barjot[24] and for the prominence granted to Pierre Bellanger, founder and CEO of radio station Skyrock where Boutih worked as Manager of Institutional Relations.
[24] In between the two rounds of the Socialist Party Primary to select a Presidential candidate, Malek Boutih vehemently attacked Benoît Hamon maintaining that he would be "in harmony with an Islamo-Leftist fringe [to whom] he would make a discreet electoral appeal" and branded him the candidate for Indigènes de la République (an anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-Zionist party accused of racism, antisemitism, homophobia and antifeminism).
[33] He personally supports[further explanation needed] the Geneva Initiative, an alternative peace plan envisaging the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.