France closes ranks against burka

Emma-Kate Symons, Paris July 18, 2008

FRANCE has taken a united stand against the burka and the veil with a leading Muslim minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's Government condemning head-to-toe Islamic dress as "a prison and a straitjacket".

Following a landmark appeal court ruling denying French citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore a burka at the behest of her French husband, Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara said all Islamic coverings for women, including the popular head and shoulder veil or hijab were "symbols of oppression".

"The burka is a prison; it's a straitjacket," she told Le Parisien.

"It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy."

The words burka and niqab are used interchangeably in France, although burka normally refers to the head-to-toe covering including a screen over the eyes that is popular in parts of Afghanistan. The niqab generally leaves a small slit for the eyes.

Ms Amara did not stop with her denunciation of the most extreme forms of Islamic dress for women and their incompatibility with French values such as secularism, democracy and sexual equality.

"The veil and the burka are the same thing. The only difference is a few centimetres of fabric," she said. "We have to fight against this obscurantist practice which endangers equality between men and women."

In 2005, France banned the veil in all schools, a decision that was met with only small pockets of brief resistance. It is now broadly accepted, including by most of France's estimated five million Muslims, Europe's largest Muslim minority.

A campaigner for women's rights and equality for Muslim women in France's fractious immigrant-dominated housing estates, Ms Amara said she hoped the court ruling would "dissuade certain fanatics from imposing the burka on their wives".

In a rare show of unity, prominent figures across the political spectrum applauded the court decision refusing citizenship to 32-year-old Faiza Mabchour, on the grounds she had failed to integrate. After moving to France in 2000, following her marriage to a French citizen of North African origin, the Moroccan mother of three converted to hardline Salafism, the fundamentalist strand of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia. According to her husband's wishes, she began wearing a burka with only a slit opening at the eyes.

Despite speaking good French, Ms Mabchour demonstrated an ignorance of basic French values and rights during interviews with state officials.

In her ruling, state commissioner Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave said Ms Mabchour came for interviews "clothed from head to toe in the clothing of women from the Arabian Peninsula, with a veil covering her hair, forehead and chin and a piece of cloth over her face. Her eyes could only be seen through a small slit".

"She lives virtually as a recluse, disconnected from French society. She has no concept of laicite (the secular state or secularism) nor the right to vote. She lives in total subservience to the men in her family."

The appeal ruling was welcomed after controversy surrounding the annulment of a marriage in the northern city of Lille, on the grounds that the Muslim bride had lied about her virginity.
The head of France's Muslim Council, Mohammed Mousaoui, was cautious in his reaction to the burka decision.

"It should not serve as a pretext to stigmatise the majority of Muslims or to the point the finger at the practise of Islam," he said. "In the majority of Muslim schools ... the wearing of the burka is neither an obligation nor a recommendation".

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