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Latest update: 29/01/2010
- Burqa - France - François Fillon
French PM asks top court to help draft law banning full Islamic veil
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has asked France's top court to help the government draft a law banning the full Islamic veil, his office said. The move comes three days after a French parliament report called for the ban.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Friday asked France's top court to help the government draft a law banning the full Islamic veil, his office said.
The government's move comes three days after a French parliament report called for a ban on the burqa and niqab, saying Muslim women who fully cover their heads and faces pose an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.
Fillon wrote to the State Council, the country's highest administrative court, asking it to "study the legal solutions enabling us to reach a ban on wearing the full veil, which I want to be as wide and effective as possible."
He asked the court to "help the government find a legal answer to the concerns expressed by parliament's representatives and to rapidly submit a bill on the subject to parliament."
The State Council is to submit its findings by the end of March.
After six months of hearings, a panel of 32 lawmakers this week recommended a ban on the face-covering veil in schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, the broadest move yet to restrict Muslim dress in France.
The commission stopped short however of calling for legislation to outlaw the burqa in the streets, shopping centres or other public venues after raising doubts about the constitutionality of such a move.
France is home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority but the sight of fully-veiled women remains rare. Only 1,900 women wear a niqab, 90 percent of them under 40, according to interior ministry estimates.
Supporters of a ban argue that the full veil is being pushed by radicals in the French Muslim community, but critics say the wearing of the garment remains marginal and warn a ban risks stigmatising France's six million Muslims.
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.
The new French debate on the face-veil is being closely watched, three months after Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets.
President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone in June when he declared the burqa "not welcome" in France.
He has since sought to reassure France's Muslims, declaring this week that freedom to practise religion was enshrined in the French constitution.
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 on security grounds.
The Netherlands and Austria are considering a ban on the full veil, while Denmark said Thursday it would limit the use in public of the burka and niqab veils although stopping short of an outright ban.
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Comments (7)
burqas in public
Of course it should be banned. That's ridiculous to expect every country to accept and conform to tribal traditions from the 8th century. We all live in a post 911 world in the liberals have conveniently forgotten, and let's not forget who planned,and executed 911.
I don't understand why they
I don't understand why they are doing this; to give freedom to muslim womens or to disgrace their religion. it doesn't sound like a liberal society or seculerism, but more like a dictatorship. Because everyone atleast have a right to choose what to wear or what not
ban the burka and niqab
I agree, their attire should be restricted in their own countries where it is required, not in a country where they have decided to live. When a women visits their country we need to follow their rules, then when in another country they should also follow those rules
Dark Age enslavement
Very good statement! The veil has no place in the western world. Such enslavement has no place anywhere. Why would a woman want to wear a veil in such a liberal culture as that of France? Hmm? She would feel quite silly on the beaches. confined
Burqa ban
i believe this is absurd, this only shows how democracy and freedom are only but fantasy that in truth it is the influential minority that call the shots, but what gives any man to dictate how one lives for his opinion changes everyday depending on his limited experience of life as a Muslim i say submit to Allah he is worthy of legislation as he is the creator
Banning the full veil
Well done France for making a stand against the full veil. The people who want the full veil must make a choice of whether to live in France and respect French culture or leave and go to a country where the full veil is part of the culture - may I suggest Iran? The full veil has no part in the modern world and I for one would not like to be served by anyone wearing such a veil.
This Dark Age sexual enslavement is intolerable!
The problem, is, by appeasing the Islamists, they will demand an inch further everytime! The veil has nothing to do with Islam but with Dark age sexist Arabic culture as the Moroccan sociologist, Fatima Mernissi found out in her book "The Veil and the Male Elite". After researching thousands of "Hadiths" ie. the Muslims' prophet words and deeds! It's like being naked which is extreme form of liberated culture, is not acceptable in public, anywhere, thus, the veil that symbolizes extreme enslavement culture, cannot be tolerated any further, by modernity and women's struggle for equality and freedom’s human rights, especially in the dominantly secular and progressively modern West. Where religion is rightly a private matter and not to be exploited anymore as a political tool, especially for dominant unjust power in whatever form. And further, such veiled women/girls are actually kept in isolation, even when they are out, from integrating with non-Muslim public, especially in the West, thus showing arrogance and contempt for diversity and non-Muslim’s way of life and population. Thus, the ban is indeed a positive move towards liberating women/girls, who have long suffered and are deceived by the manipulated thin-line between Islamic and Arabic culture!
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