A 2006 file photo of a woman wearing a niqab in Blackburn, England. Quebec's move to require removal of the veil to receive public services is likely unconstitutional, legal experts say.PHIL NOBLE
A bruising battle is shaping up in France over whether fully veiled Muslim women should be banned from appearing on the street or in any other public setting, a proposal already endorsed by many of President Nicolas Sarkozy's rightwing allies.
The fight is not over whether the face-covering niqab , or burka , as it is commonly called in France, should be tolerated.
Mr. Sarkozy has said the head-to-toe garment is unwelcome on French soil. The leader of his party bloc in the National Assembly called it a "negation of life in society." The spokesman for the Socialist opposition condemned it as "a prison for women," a description only slightly less damning than that of his Communist colleague who termed it "ambulatory prison."
Five months after setting out to ban the burka , French politicians are with few exceptions divided only over how to go about it without violating constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression.
The Socialists' spokesman, Benoît Hamon, said on Wednesday that while his party opposes the niqab , it has decided that an outright ban would be unenforceable. But a number of leftwing deputies have indicated they will refuse to follow the party line if a ban comes up for a vote.
Several members of Mr. Sarkozy's party have said they plan to introduce a bill to outlaw the wearing of the niqab in the next few days.
Jean-François Copé, the party's parliamentary leader, called the garment a threat by radical Islamists to the nation's security. "Extremists are testing the republic by encouraging a practice they know to be contrary to the essential principles of our country," he said.
Women wearing the head-to-toe covering, which leaves just a narrow opening for the eyes, are a rare sight in France. The French domestic intelligence agency said late last year it has even counted them, and found precisely 367 niqab-wearers in a country with a Muslim population estimated at close to six million.
Still, the garment has become a red flag, feeding a more generalized unease over the visibility of Islam that has dominated a continuing government-sponsored debate on France's national identity.
Mr. Sarkozy has yet to say how he intends to handle the issue, although his aides have been quoted as saying he wants a "realistic" approach. Last month, after a Swiss referendum that banned the construction of minarets, he called for religious tolerance. He also called on Muslims to remember France's Christian roots, and to practise their faith "with humble discretion."
At least one of Mr. Sarkozy's ministers has suggested that the National Assembly should avoid legislating against the niqab and instead voice its concern in a resolution condemning it as an affront to French values and demeaning to women. It would be futile, said Labour Minister Xavier Darcos, to set up a "fashion police to impose fines on women wearing the burka."
Other proposals range from strengthening an existing law against wearing masks at protests to sending out social workers to determine whether a woman has been forced by male relatives to don the niqab . But legal experts have warned that most of the ideas would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
During five months of public hearings, religious leaders warned that a formal ban would do little to combat radical Islam and could poison the already uneasy relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.
"As a Frenchwoman, I don't see the point of debating a question that concerns a tiny minority of women and making a political policy from it," said Saadia Boussana, a writer for My Woman Magazine (MWM-Mag), a webzine aimed at Muslim women.
"What is worrisome with such a law is that it can exacerbate feelings of frustration and that would be a prelude to a phenomenon of people turning in on themselves," she added. "To forbid is to reject."
France, with its highly centralized state, is the only European country to have outlawed a form of Islamic dress throughout the country. A 2004 law bans ostentatious religious symbols from public schools, a prohibition that could apply to large crosses or Jewish stars, but was aimed specifically at the Muslim head scarf.
In several German states, Muslim teachers are not permitted to wear a head scarf. Judges in other countries have ruled in specific cases that teachers must not wear the face-covering niqab , and Denmark briefly considered and then dropped a proposal to prohibit it.
A ban on the niqab in public settings, should it be adopted, would put France in a class of its own.
Special to The Globe and Mail