Posted by David Stein in Politics on January 16, 2010
PARIS (YBH.ME) - With security concerns topping the list, French lawmakers were directed by President Sarkozy, back in June, to craft a law banning public face-covering. Extremely devout Muslims require women to cover their entire bodies, wear gloves over their hands and veil their faces, leaving only a slit for their eyes. It is a policy directly at odds with France’s secular mandate.
France has the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe, with over 5 million. Historically, France opened up immigration from Muslim lands after World War II to fill labor shortages, and as part of a give-back for their colonization of Morocco and Algeria.
Public attacks in Madrid and London by Muslim radicals living in Europe have raised legitimate security concerns. An obscured face makes for an unidentifiable attacker.
A draft of the “veil banning” law has been put before Parliament, and reactions are trickling in. “No one may, in spaces open to the public and on public streets, wear a garment or an accessory that has the effect of hiding the face,” says the draft of the law. The law specifically notes security concerns, hoping to head off challenges based on religious freedom. France’s main Muslim leaders have said the Quran does not require complete covering. However, many fear a backlash from France’s radical Muslims.
Veiled women who have applied for French citizenship have been denied on the grounds they have “adopted a radical religious practice incompatible with essential values of the French community.” They are now turning to the European Court of Human Rights for redress. If unable to wear the veil in public, women will be forced to remain indoors or return to their countries of origin.
Andre Gerin, head of the parliamentary panel, has noted the full veil is an “attempt to instrumentalize Islam for political ends” through a “fundamentalist and barbaric ideology” that oppresses women. Gerin is a communist who was mayor of a Lyon suburb which is a magnet for Muslim fundamentalists. He is sure the phenomenon of veiling women is a growing trend.
In a recent interview, Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who runs the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, took the opposing view, saying that if the ban is enacted “we’re going to become the laughing stock of democracies.”