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France conservative leader introduces bill to ban burqas in public

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The leader of France's conservative party introduced legislation Tuesday to the National Assembly that would ban wearing of the burqa in public and make it punishable by 750 euros. Jean-Francois Cope, leader of the Union for Popular Movement (UMP) in the National Assembly, is leading the movement in the legislature, spurred on by French President Nicholas Sarkozy's announcement in June that those who wore the burqa were not welcome in France. The bill also has the support of some French socialists from the other side of the political spectrum, as well as that of French Prime Minister Francois Fillon. The official commission into the issue is expected to report by the end of January. Cope has been pursuing legislation since December, in direct opposition to the National Assembly's November decision not to push for specific legislation banning the burqa. The commission began its hearings in July after being established a month earlier to address the issue. The controversy between the Muslim community and the secular French government has gone on for several years. In December 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously ruled that there was no human rights violation when a French school expelled two Muslim students for refusing to remove their headscarves. In July of that year, a Muslim woman's citizenship application was denied because she failed to assimilate to French culture and practiced a type of Islam found incompatible with French values.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on January 13, 2010 (boomark / email).