The French government will defy official advice and put forward a draft law next month to ban the burka, or full-body veil, from all public places.
Despite warnings that such a law would be open to constitutional challenge, President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted yesterday that a ban on the burka, and its Arab equivalent the niqab, was needed to protect the “dignity of women”.
The debate on the law, to be completed by July, will scramble the normal political boundaries between right and left. It will also divide France’s 4,000,000 to 5,000,000-strong muslim community.
Although the full-length veil is worn by only 2,000 women in France, its gradually increasing presence is seen by politicians on both the right and left as an affront to the official republican values of liberty and equality. Other politicians, on both right and left, say that a law is unnecessary, probably unconstitutional and likely to embitter race relations.
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Independent–Sarkozy launches new law to ban the burka
The French government will defy official advice and put forward a draft law next month to ban the burka, or full-body veil, from all public places.
Despite warnings that such a law would be open to constitutional challenge, President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted yesterday that a ban on the burka, and its Arab equivalent the niqab, was needed to protect the “dignity of women”.
The debate on the law, to be completed by July, will scramble the normal political boundaries between right and left. It will also divide France’s 4,000,000 to 5,000,000-strong muslim community.
Although the full-length veil is worn by only 2,000 women in France, its gradually increasing presence is seen by politicians on both the right and left as an affront to the official republican values of liberty and equality. Other politicians, on both right and left, say that a law is unnecessary, probably unconstitutional and likely to embitter race relations.
Read it all.