Ethiocross Blog

AFP:-PARIS (AFP) – A French parliament report called Tuesday for a ban on the full Islamic veil, saying Muslim women who wear the burqa were posing an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.

After six months of hearings, a panel of 32 lawmakers recommended a ban on the face-covering veil in all schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, the broadest move yet to restrict Muslim dress in France.

"The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable," the report said. "We must condemn this excess."

The commission however stopped short of proposing broad legislation to outlaw the burqa in the streets, in shopping centres and other public venues after raising doubts about the constitutionality of such a move.

"The wearing of the full veil is the tip of the iceberg," said communist lawmaker Andre Gerin, the chair of the commission, who presented the report to the parliament speaker.

"There are scandalous practices hidden behind this veil," said Gerin who vowed to fight the "gurus" he said were seeking to export a radical brand of fundamentalism and sectarianism to France.

Tensions flared at the last minute when a group of right-wing lawmakers pushed unsuccessfully for a tougher measure to ban the burqa in all public venues.

In the end, the commission called on parliament to adopt a resolution stating that the all-encompassing veil was "contrary to the values of the republic" and proclaiming that "all of France is saying 'no' to the full veil".

The National Assembly resolution would pave the way to legislation making it illegal for anyone to appear with their face covered at state-run institutions and in public transport, for reasons of security.

Women who turn up at the post office or any government building wearing the full veil would be denied services such as a work visa, residency papers or French citizenship, the report said.

The opposition Socialists refused to endorse the final report, to protest the government's launching of a debate on national identity, which has exposed French fears about Islam.

Critics of the "burqa debate" have warned that it risks stigmatising France's six million Muslims and describe the wearing of the garment as a marginal phenomenon affecting few women.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy sought Tuesday to reassure France's estimated six million Muslims, saying in a speech at a cemetery for French Muslim soldiers that freedom to practise religion was enshrined in the constitution.

"Our country, which has known not only wars of religion but also fratricidal battles due to state anti-clericalism, cannot let French Muslim citizens be stigmatised," he said at Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery in northern France.

Despite a large Muslim presence, the sight of fully-veiled women is not common in France. Only 1,900 women wear the burqa, according to the interior ministry.

Half of them live in the Paris region and 90 percent are under 40.

Home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority, France is being closely watched at a time of particular unease over Islam, three months after Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets.

Sarkozy set the tone for the debate in June when he declared the burqa "not welcome" in France and described it as a symbol of women's "subservience" that cannot be tolerated in a country that considers itself a human rights leader.

French support for a law banning the full veil is strong: a poll last week showed 57 percent are in favour.

The leader of Sarkozy's right-wing party in parliament, Jean-Francois Cope, has already presented draft legislation that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their faces in public.

The bill is not expected to come up for debate before regional elections in March.

In 2004, France passed a law banning headscarves and any other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools after a long-running debate on how far it was willing to go to accommodate Islam in its strictly secular society.

Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria are also studying measures to ban the full veil.

Source:- AFP

Related Story:-Paris imam backs France's proposed burqa ban -PARIS (Reuters) – A French imam active in Muslim dialogue with Jews has backed a law against full face veils, parting ways with most Muslim leaders in France urging parliamentarians not to vote for a planned "burqa ban."

Hassen Chalghoumi, whose mosque stands in a northern Paris suburb where many Muslims live, said women who wanted to cover their faces should move to Saudi Arabia or other Muslim countries where that was a tradition.

France's National Assembly is likely to pass a resolution soon denouncing full veils and to try in coming months to hammer out a law forbidding them, deputies say.

A parliamentary commission studying the issue, which has been discussed alongside a wider public debate about national identity, is due to publish its recommendations next Tuesday.

Le Figaro said Friday that parliamentary deputies have decided against a general ban on the burqa, but it would not be allowed in public buildings such as hospitals and schools or on public transport services, citing the text of a decision by the commission obtained in advance by the French daily.

"This measure would oblige people not only to show their face at the entry to public buildings and services but also to keep their face uncovered for the whole time they are in the public space," Le Figaro quoted the document as saying.

President Nicolas Sarkozy calls the veils an affront to women's dignity unwelcome in France, home to about five million Muslims. Fewer than 2,000 women wear the veils, known here as burqas although most are Middle Eastern niqabs showing the eyes.

"Yes, I am for a legal ban of the burqa, which has no place in France, a country where women have been voting since 1945," Hassen Chalghoumi, 36, told the daily Le Parisien.

Chalghoumi, who has received death threats for his promotion of dialogue with Jews, said that full face veils had no basis in Islam and "belong to a tiny minority tradition reflecting an ideology that scuttles the Muslim religion."

"The burqa is a prison for women, a tool of sexist domination and Islamist indoctrination," said Chalghoumi, whose mosque stands in Drancy, site of a wartime camp where Jews were detained before transport to Nazi concentration camps.

Chalghoumi criticized some of the tougher measures proposed by conservative politicians, such as imposing fines or cutting off child support payments for veiled women.

But the Tunisian-born imam, who is a naturalized French citizen, agreed France should not grant citizenship to immigrant women who cover their faces.

"Having French nationality means wanting to take part in society, at school, at work," he said.

"But with a bit of cloth over their faces, what can these women share with us? If they want to wear the veil, they can go to a country where it's the tradition, like Saudi Arabia."

French Muslim leaders and many opposition politicians oppose any ban, saying it would alienate Muslims and possibly violate civil rights laws.

(Reporting by Sophie Taylor, editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

Source:- Reuters