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France may ban full Islamic veil, says ruling party

President Sarkozy's party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the burqa, the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.  

A parliamenary committee, set up six months ago to consider the issue of immigrant integration in France, which has Europe’s largest Islamic minority, will report next month.   Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, Immigration Minister Eric Besson and Education Minister Xavier Darcos were among those questioned by the committee.

According to a report by the anti-terror internal security force DCRI, only 400 women in France wear the full veil.  An Interior Ministry study, however, has put the figure at several thousand.  Another branch of the services, the SDIG, which keeps tabs on open political and religious groups, concluded that the women adopted the dress to provoke society, even their families, because of their sympathy for hardline Islam. The SDIG report cited the example of a group of 15 veiled women who appeared on the first day of June sales in a shopping centre in Marseille but did not make a single purchase.

"The issue is not how many women wear the burqa," Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. "There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”  He said the legislation will be enacted after consultation with Muslim communities "so that this measure is understood for what it is: a law of liberation and not a ban" - a comment which closely echoes Sarkozy’s view that, "The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience."

The proposed ban comes as pressure mounts on Sarkozy to scrap his debate on national identity in which citizens have been invited to discuss, in town and village halls as well as on the internet, what it means to be French.

Last Monday, Families Minister Nadine Morano told a meeting that she wanted young Muslims to "love France, find a job, stop wearing their caps back to front – and to stop speaking verlan” - a popular form of slang in which words are inverted.

"Enough!" said former Socialist leader Francois Hollande. "This debate was badly defined, poorly chosen from the start, and now it is going to the dogs."

Cracks also emerged within the government, with Higher Education Minister Valérie Pécresse saying there was a need to "shift the focus toward concrete proposals" to prevent the debate from further spinning out of control.

The debate is scheduled to end with a national conference on 4 February.

Immigration Minister Eric Besson visiting the “jungle” refugee camp in Calais

by Patrick Hay