Category Archives: France

So whose liberty, equality, fraternity is really at stake?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Matt French niqab ban cartoonA decent article on the French veil ban, in the Daily Telegraph of all places (and no, it’s not by Peter Oborne). There’s a good editorial in the Financial Times too, which states:

“The ban’s defenders, who range across the spectrum of French politics, pretend the veil is a threat to France’s republican values. But this republican bigotry is in reality a cheap populist ploy, in large part dictated by the electoral calendar at a time when the xenophobic National Front is again scoring well in the polls.”

(The cartoon is from the Telegraph as well, via Inayat’s Corner.)

Allison Pearson supports French niqab ban – now there’s a surprise

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The burka and the niqab should be banned in Britain. They are a barrier to integration, a statement of hostility to the host country. Poor women who have been brainwashed into hiding their faces are victims, not martyrs. The burka is a not a sign of religion, but of subservience.”

Allison Pearson in the Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2011

Still, at least we’re spared references to Muslim women “wearing nose-bags over their faces” or to Pearson’s sense of “burkha rage” against veiled women who are “taking the mickey out of our country and its tolerant ways”, or her more general complaint that Britain has done “too much” to “accommodate its immigrant groups”.

Update:  The EDL are impressed by the article: “Allison Pearson seems to have started to understand the nature of the 7th century Islam that has taken hold in our towns and cities”.

Further update:  See also ENGAGE, 15 April 2011

Islamophobia on the rise

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two letters in today’s Guardian on the French veil ban. One is from Liz Fekete of the Institute of Race Relations who writes:

The observation of French niqab wearer “Anne” (Facing the ban, 12 April) that the debate on the ban on the full-face veil has led to stigmatisation and hate is also true here.

On Monday I attended an anti-racist rally in London outside the French embassy, where peaceful demonstrators protested against the ban on the grounds that Muslim women should not be criminalised for what they choose to wear. We were attacked on two sides by members of the English Defence League.

Over the last few years we have seen how Islamophobia breeds a culture of suspicion. As that morphs into a culture of hate, one must fear for the future.

France: first Muslim woman fined for wearing veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police have fined a woman in a shopping centre car park outside Paris for wearing a niqab, or full-face Islamic veil, in the first enforcement of France’s burqa ban.

The 28-year-old woman was stopped by police in the car park in Les Mureaux, north-west of Paris, at 5.30pm on Monday, the day the niqab ban came into force. Police said she was stopped “without incident” for a few minutes and given a €150 (£132) fine. She has one month to pay.

Under the law backed by Nicolas Sarkozy, it is illegal for women in full-face veils to go anywhere in public, including walk down the street, enter shops, use public transport, attend doctors’ surgeries or town halls. They face a fine or a citizenship class.

On Tuesday morning another woman in a full-face veil was stopped by police after she tried to enter a town hall in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Followed by a French TV crew, she had brought some paperwork to the town hall for a bureaucratic issue just before 11am. She was refused by officials on the grounds that she was wearing a niqab. On the way out police asked her to remove her face-veil to check her identity.

When she refused she was taken to a local police station, where she lifted her veil but insisted on putting it back on again. She was not fined but Le Parisien reported that she had been given a written reminder and a leaflet explaining that full-face veils were no longer allowed in public and she risked a fine.

After police warned that the law banning niqabs was “infinitely difficult” to enforce and would not be a priority, the interior minister Claude Guéant insisted the law would be fully applied in the name of “secularism” and gender equality.

Guardian, 12 April 2011

‘Call for UK burka ban grows’ claims Express

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police made the first arrests yesterday of women flouting France’s new burka ban amid fresh calls to outlaw them in Britain too. Anyone who appears veiled in public in France can now be fined £130 under a law that came into effect yesterday. The move sparked calls for a similar approach in this country, with surveys showing there was widespread public support for a law that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone has tabled a private member’s bill that would ban veils in public, while UKIP has won public support for its policy on outlawing the burka. Mr Hollobone announced his bill last year, saying: “This is Britain. We are not a Muslim country. Covering your face in public is strange, and to many people both intimidating and offensive. We are never going to get along with having a fully integrated society if a substantial minority insist on concealing their identity from everyone else.”

Last night, UKIP’s Gerard Batten said: “UKIP is opposed to the burka because it is a physical manifestation of extremist Islam which is intolerant and incompatible with Western liberal democracy. UKIP policy is to ban it from all public institutions, buildings and public transport; private organisations and buildings must have a blanket ban on all face-coverings or no policy at all.”

Daily Express, 12 April 2011

Quite how two notorious Islamophobes reiterating their views on the veil demonstrates that the call for a ban is “growing” is unclear.

Muslim women arrested in protest against French veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kenza Drider arrest

At least two women have been briefly detained in France while wearing Islamic veils, after a law banning the garment in public came into force. Police said they were held not because of their veils but for joining an unauthorised protest, and they were later released.

France is the first country in Europe to publicly ban a form of dress some Muslims regard as a religious duty. Offenders face a fine of 150 euros (£133; $217) and a citizenship course. People forcing women to wear the veil face a much larger fine and a prison sentence of up to two years.

The two women detained had taken part in a demonstration outside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Police said the protest had not been authorised and so people were asked to move on. When they did not, they were arrested.

One of the women, Kenza Drider, had arrived in Paris from the southern city of Avignon, boarding a train wearing a niqab, and unchallenged by police. “We were held for three and a half hours at the police station while the prosecutors decided what to do,” she told AFP news agency. “Three and a half hours later they told us: ‘It’s fine, you can go’.”

A French Muslim property dealer, Rachid Nekkaz, said he was creating a fund to pay women’s fines, and encouraged “all free women who so wish to wear the veil in the street and engage in civil disobedience”.

Mr Nekkaz said he and “a female friend wearing the niqab” were arrested at a separate demonstration in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Elysee Palace. “We wanted to be fined for wearing the niqab, but the police didn’t want to issue a fine,” he told AFP.

BBC News, 11 April 2011

See also “France arrests Muslim women as full-face veil ban begins”, AFP, 11 April 2011

Boycott, protests set stage for French Islam debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

French Muslim protest

France’s ruling conservatives are pressing ahead with a public debate on Islam and secularism on Tuesday despite criticism that it is an excuse to pander to far-right voters ahead of a general election next year.

Sarkozy’s UMP party said in December that it would host a public forum to address fears about Islam’s role in French society, following controversy over Muslim street prayers, halal-only restaurants and full-face Islamic veils.

But a hail of criticism from religious leaders and some party members has forced the UMP to downsize the event and fight off accusations that a focus on Islam will provide cover for the airing of anti-Muslim prejudices among the French.

“They can’t cancel it now,” said Jean-Francois Doridot, an analyst at the Ipsos polling agency. “It’s a sort of trap that is closing around the UMP, and they are trying to get themselves out of it one way or another.”

Amid sharp criticism from religious leaders, party officials have bickered over the need to hold a debate at all, France’s largest Muslim group has announced a boycott, and Prime Minister Francois Fillon declined his invitation to attend.

The guest list for Tuesday’s debate has yet to be confirmed, but Interior Minister Claude Gueant – who came under fire recently for saying the French “no longer felt at home” – will attend, as will party spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.

Advocacy groups have promised to picket the event. “This is not a debate, it’s a trial,” said Nedjma Boutlelis, the head of an advocacy group that held a street protest against the debate on Saturday. “I don’t see the point of holding a debate simply to charm the far-right.”

Reuters, 4 April 2011

See also Financial Times, 4 April 2011