Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
France Outlaws Full-Face Veils
Share: 
by NowPublic Staff | March 4, 2011 at 12:24 pm
539 views | 0 Recommendations | 4 comments
France Bans Niqab and Burqa: Veil Law Takes Effect April 11, 2011
As of April 11, 2011, wearing a full-face veil will be illegal in France. This means that women will no longer be able to wear a niqab (full-face veil with narrow eye opening) or burqa/burka (full-body covering with mesh over the face) in public without facing a fine. Men forcing women to wear a niqab or burqa will face a much steeper fine.
The hijab (headscarf) and chador (full-body covering which leaves the face exposed) are not banned. The niqab and burqa ban was championed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in an attempt to consolidate right-wing support for his UMP party.
While supporters of the niqab law have bent over backwards to frame the bill as banning any face-coverings, it is clear who the bill targets; Sarkozy has been accused of deliberately stigmatizing a small number of Muslims in order to curry favor with voters.
The niqab/burka bill was originally authored by Andre Gerin, a member of France's Communist Party.
Videos
An estimated 6-10% of France's population is Muslim, though only a tiny fraction wear full-face veils. According to Ha'Aretz, fewer than 400 Muslim women in France wear full-face veils. The ban would also affect tourists and business travelers in France, however.
The niqab and burqa are symbols of foreign-ness in a country rife with xenophobia towards Muslims, who make up the majority of recent immigrants. These feelings are fueled by politicians trying to hold onto their respective corners of government. As such, those symbols are easily singled out.
Popular support for banning full-face veils is not limited to France, however: according to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, Germany and Britain overwhemingly support the ban, while Americans tend to reject it.
Face veils will be outlawed virtually anywhere outside women's own homes, except when they are worshipping in a religious place or travelling as a passenger in a private car, although traffic police may stop them if they think they do not have a clear "field of vision" while driving. Women wearing niqab will be fined €150 (about £130) and be given a citizenship class to remind them of the republican values of secular France and gender equality.
Advertisement
NowPublic on Facebook
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 12:52 on March 4th, 2011
when I go out, many a time my face is covered except my eyes. What covers it is sometimes silk or pashmina, but more often knit acrylic or wool. The names of my covers are "toque" and "scarf" and "neck tube." I need to wear these things to prevent frost bite when it gets very cold. I walk about in public thus covered, also wearing thick heavy clothing over my whole body. I look about me and see men and women alike dressed so, some with even their eyes covered with goggles or sunglasses. Nobody feels insecure, even though sometimes folks wearing these same things rob businesses or mug citizens.
The whole anti-veil movement is so very racist and illogical as to give me paroxysms of impotent fury. I am sure that if a woman in france pulled her scarf up to protect her face from a cold wind or a driving rain she would not be fined. What's more, I urge muslim women who do not feel comfortable exposed to utilize the various western forms of face covering as though you were doing so for protection from the elements, and thus fight these laws. you can claim sensitivity to sun, wind, heat, cold, snow, pollution, whatever excuse you need for covering your mouth and nose and wearing a hat.
all that being said, I hope you are choosing to cover, not being forced by shame, guilt, family pressure, or masculine insistence.
at 09:25 on March 24th, 2011
It isn't 'racist'. Islam is NOT a race. It is a way of life, a so called religion, political ideal, doctrine, body of strict laws.... but certainly NOT a race of people. People throw the word 'racist' around so much these days. However, it is out of context.Racism regards to people being treated as second class citizens, ridiculed or held back solely due to their race. To call Islam a race is quite terribly inaccurate, as Muslims tend to be of many races. Arabs, Asians, Africans etc etc.... No one is singling out a certain race in the bans and discussions, only the political ideal, the laws of this doctrine.... The total covering of the women. To be fair, it is France's choice about what they will allow in their country. Based on their own ideas, lifestyle, culture and society. Immigrants MUST abide by the laws and cultural demands of their new country because after all, if they want to call it home they ought to know how to live there. It is really backwards to move to another country and expect them to bend over backward to do things your way, when really.... Why did you leave home anyway? The country takes you in, allows you to call it home, you might as well respect the people and way of life. I for one, am never going to move to Saudi Arabia because I know that I do not want to wear all that fabric. I highly doubt they would take to kindly of me if I wanted to wear a bikini on their beach.... Why should the French feel any differently? Why is it ok for Muslim majority countries to disallow foreigners their foreign way of life but not for France? Think about the biggest reason that women wear these coverings.It is to prevent men from feeling lust and or acting on such lust. To prevent the women from being raped. Essentially this means that they are completely letting the men off the hook. Apparently men are unable to control themselves if a woman is uncovered and therefore her fault if she is raped. (She wasn't being modest)So your quote: ' I hope you are choosing to cover, not being forced by shame, guilt, family pressure, or masculine insistence.'They don't really have a choice. It is ORDAINED in their laws. It is out of fear of being raped or punished that they wear it. It isn't some fashion accessory, it is necessary because their men aren't held accountable for their actions. So yeah, it is shame, guilt, family pressure, masculine insistence and most importantly FEAR.
at 02:02 on March 5th, 2011
The reasoning put forward by Hezbollah in Lebanon some months ago and Hamas in their current Virtue drive in Gaza align with the Iran clerics claim women not dressing properly cause earthquakes and are responsible for the inappropriate behavior men subject them to including rape.
These statements reinforce the reality the burqa is not a freely worn garment given the clear stigma Muslim women, who do not wear the burqa or even the veil, are subject to in Muslim communities.
If it is such a free choice how is it Muslim men are not covered in a ton of black fabric or cotton veils to cover their masculinity? Are Muslim men not sexual beings?
It is only when Muslim men are compelled to wear the burqa and veils that there will be equality in Islam between men and women, along with changes to divorce settlements. Inheritance and equality under law for the same crimes, and Muslim men can be beaten by women and children as Muslim men have the right to do so to women and children now.
The burqa is as much a political statement as a naked woman walking in the streets to advocate public nudity as a right which should be accepted by the rest of society. One of subservience to men’s dogma not independence.
Nudism is a cultural and political movement advocating and defending social nudity in private and in public. It may also refer to a lifestyle based on personal, family and/or social nudism.
Society in general has decided public nudism can be very confronting, inappropriate, and even regarded as obscene by some. Although nudism is often practiced in a persons home or garden, either alone or with members of the family public and in restricted venues public nudity is a behavior which society in general have deemed should be restricted and subject to judicial penalty.
The burqa is much more of an obscenity than nudity. For where nudism seeks to expand the societal bounds and diminish prejudice the burqa politically advocates a denigrating, subservient role in society for women.
The burqa reinforces the notion women are not only to blame for men’s behavior towards them in regards sexual assaults but also women’s aspirations should be necessarily be different and subservient to a man’s definition of what a woman’s life should be.
The public wearing of the burqa is a categorical political act which seeks to advance the notion of the acceptance of the subservience and restriction of women’s opportunities in life relative to men which is absolutely obscene and must therefore be subject to judicial penalty.
Everything we do is political. A woman deciding to wear shorts given human history is a political statement in itself. For it can be deemed as simply a relatively freely decided fashion statement. The Burqa is an antitheist of this and very much a political statement of subjugation and in no way can be regarded as a fashion statement or a modern principle. No matter how many times and subtle colorful variations get dragged down the catwalk.
at 08:49 on March 24th, 2011
People keep throwing the work 'racist' around. It isn't racist because Islam is NOT a race, it is a 'religion' or ideology practiced by many different races from Arabs, Asians, Africans etc....So calling people 'racist' who don't agree with certain parts of the Muslim's habits, is inaccurate.