No bus for you!
The French debate over banning the veil heats up :) Anyone else think Sarkozy just doesn't like them cause it hampers is checking women out?
Ban women wearing the burka from benefits and public transport, demands French government spokesman
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:30 AM on 20th January 2010
Women who wear the burka in France should be banned from using public transport or receiving state handouts, a government official says.
UMP party spokesman Frederic Lefebvre demanded that any woman breaking a proposed law making the garment illegal should be 'deprived of her rights'.
His comments came the day after the head of president Nicolas Sarkozy's party said Muslim women wearing full-face veils should not be granted French nationality.
A woman wears a burqa as she walks up the stairs outside the municipal library in Roncin northern France
Rights: A woman wears a burka outside the library in Roncin, northern France. The government is considering taking benefits away from those who wear them
Mr Lefebvre said: 'When you don't respect your responsibilities you should not have access to any benefits.
'The rights and responsibilities of citizens in France are important.
'When you ignore rules that make things illegal, like a ban on the burka, you have some of your rights taken away, like the right to state benefits or using public transport.'
UMP party chief Xavier Bertrand said on Sunday that women who wear burkas or niqabs should not be allowed to acquire French citizenship.
Nicolas Sarkozy
He said: 'The full veil is simply a prison for women who wear it and will make no one believe a woman wearing it wants to integrate.'
President Sarkozy has called Islamic face veils 'a sign of debasement that imprison women' and said they are not welcome in France.
As the national debate raged on Islamic headwear, Sarkozy said last week he wants MPs to vote on a total ban on all full face veils in France.
The burka is a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with a mesh screen over the face, and the niqab is a full-body veil with slits for the eyes.
A parliamentary inquiry into the garments is due to be published on January 26.
Another prominent UMP member Jean-Francois Cope also proposed in December that women should be fined more than £700 for wearing the burka and the niqab in public.
And any man forcing a woman to cover her face burka should be fined even more, with those who refuse to pay up facing arrest and prison, Mr Cope said.
The country's immigration minister Eric Besson described them as 'an affront to national identity'.
Women's rights groups and left wing MPs have gone even further, describing the item as a 'walking coffin'.
But many left-wing politicians have cautioned that a draconian law banning the burka could inflame tensions in the Muslim community, that it would be difficult to enforce and could face a challenge in the European Court of Human Rights.
According to the Interior Ministry, about 2,000 women in France wear full Muslim dress in public.
France - home to Europe's largest Muslim population with five million resident - already passed a law in 2004 forbidding students and staff from wearing veils and other religious symbols in schools as part of a drive to defend secularism.
This month Switzerland voted to ban minarets on mosques across the country.
In September a French mother was banned from wearing a 'burkini' swimsuit at her local swimming pool. Carole, a 35-year-old Muslim convert, was told by the manager of pool in Emerainville, near Paris, that the garment was 'inappropriate' on hygiene grounds.
The woman said she bought her burkini for £40 during a holiday in Dubai, adding: 'I was told that it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing off my body, which is what Islam recommends.' She is now taking her local council to court on the grounds that the ban was not a hygiene issue but a political issue.
In July, Al Qaeda terrorists vowed revenge on France if it banned the burka on its streets.
Leaders of Al Qaeda's North African network wrote on an Islamic extremist website: 'French Muslims should react to this ban with the utmost hostility.
'We will seek dreadful revenge on France by all means at our disposal, for the honour of our daughters and sisters.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1244402/Women-wear-bur...
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deepb,
To be fare, Saudi does not force all women to be in burkha, they enforce the abbaya, which is different.
And France doesn't need any excuse to decide what's best for France!
"Freedom" is a very general word. The word changes meaning from region to region. It will change its meaning depending on whether your in the U.S, Europe, Asia, Middle East Etc.
To each their own. If Saudi forces all women, even expatriates to be in burkha and only travel only with relatives in public, then the French are free to implement their rules of banning Burkha as well.
For some, its seen as:
for others it's seen as a security breach:
c'mooon.. let people do whatever they want. is "freedom" just a word now? why must people be restricted with these kinds of laws?
..ReaLitY haS a WaY oF snEaKinG uP aNd biTinG us iN tHe aSS..
Well I'd say outlawing it is a step towards stopping women from wearing it. But it's not going to be for the right reasons.
I don't agree with the veil, but all outlawing its going to do is cause trouble and further alienate the Muslim population of France. If you want women to stop wearing it, try a more positive route.
"We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect." Ambrose Bierce
What I meant was wearing an outfit that looks alien to a lot of people might make you an outcast. That's why I mentioned the mainstream thing. Probably he should ask those veil wearing women if they find it like a prison. Probably most of them will say yes. But they are bound by their traditions & customs & some such stuff. We can't do much about that.
LOL UK. I'm sure he is.
"We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect." Ambrose Bierce
I guess he is only interested in these kinda girls getting on his bus!
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"HE WHO DARES WINS"
Derek Edward Trotter
It's not so much being part of the mainstream. He thinks the veil is derogatory and abusive to women, so he doesn't want it in his country.
"We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect." Ambrose Bierce
"President Sarkozy has called Islamic face veils 'a sign of debasement that imprison women'". I think he is asking these women to be part of the mainstream. He could have used better words though. But I think he has a point.
all for a few votes