France Nears Ban on Facial Veils

PARIS — France’s lower house of Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve a ban on the wearing of veils that cover the face in public places.

The ambitious plan aims to reduce new infections – setting a benchmark of a 25% decrease by 2015 – as well as increase access to care, reduce HIV-related health disparities, and better coordinate the national response to the epidemic. Importantly, the Strategy notes that the resources needed to fight HIV and AIDS have not historically been directed to communities most in need – including gay and bisexual men, as well as transgender people – and that the number of new infections nationwide cannot be reduced without a focus on the epidemic in the LGBT community.

The draft bill, only seven articles, passed by 335 votes to 1 in the National Assembly, with mostly abstentions from the main opposition Socialist Party, which was divided over how to respond to the popular bill.

The Senate will vote on the bill in September, when it is expected to become law. Judicial challenges are expected both in France, where the Council of State will examine its constitutionality, and at the European Court of Human Rights.

The draft bill says that “no one can, in the public space, wear clothing intended to hide the face.” The bill also defines “public space” broadly, including streets, markets and private businesses, as well as government buildings and public transportation.

A fine of $190 will be imposed on those wearing the full facial veil, and anyone who forces a woman to wear such a veil will be punished by a fine of as much as $38,000 and a year in jail, doubled if the victim is a minor.

Twenty legislators from the Socialist and Communist Parties voted for the bill, including a prominent Socialist, Manuel Valls, and a Communist, André Gerin, who was among the first to call for a ban. The ban would apply to both the burqa, which covers the eyes, and the niqab, more common in France, which leaves the eyes uncovered.

The sole opposing vote was cast by a former member of the governing party, Daniel Garrigue, who supports a rival to President Nicolas Sarkozy, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

“To fight an extremist behavior, we risk slipping toward a totalitarian society,” he said.

Critics say the ban violates human rights to freedom of speech and expression and gives too much power to the state. They also say that it stigmatizes one gender of one religion — Muslim women — and thus lacks basic fairness. While the numbers are unclear, the French police estimate that only about 2,000 women in France wear the full facial veil out of a Muslim population of five million to six million.

A Socialist legislator, François de Rugy, warned that if the law was overturned in the courts, it would be a “priceless gift to the fundamentalists we all oppose.”

Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, said after the vote that “Islam, in the West, must adapt its faithful,” and added, “This is the path of wisdom.” French Muslims must accept a French law, he said, suggesting that “it is too early” to know how they will react.

Mohammed Moussaoui, leader of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, a government advisory body, has favored discouraging women from wearing the full veil, but opposed a law. Prominent Muslims in France have said that the Koran does not require veils, but they also oppose a law that would single out Muslim women.

When the French banned head scarves from public schools, for example, they did so by banning all forms of religious identification, including turbans, crosses and Jewish stars.

But Jean-François Copé, the parliamentary leader of Mr. Sarkozy’s party, defended the bill on the grounds of public security and as an important assertion of French identity and values. Mr. Sarkozy himself has said, “The burqa is not welcome in France because it is contrary to our values and contrary to the ideals we have of a woman’s dignity.”

Government officials say the bill is an effort to discourage fundamentalist Islam from taking root in France.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values, which she described this way: “Values of freedom against all the oppressions that try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice.”

Opinion polls show that French voters overwhelmingly support the ban on facial veils. A Pew Research Center poll done in April and May found that more than 80 percent of French voters supported a ban, as well as more than 70 percent of German voters and 62 percent of British voters.


(2010-07-14/New York Times )