burqa

French backing for a burqa ban across the political spectrum is sometimes hard to understand.

But the matter has divided the French government, with some members saying a law banning the burqa is not the best way to proceed.

Any male violator, if convicted of forcing a woman to wear the burqa, would face a fine of up to 30 euros, and one-year prison.

Anti-burqa campaigners all over Europe suggest that this is an issue of personal safety and basic trust.

One woman wearing a burqa said she would have to ask her husband before speaking to the Herald.

The burqa can be understood as a symbol of the outrage Muslims are feeling as they are exposed to an increasingly xenophobic Europe.

Fadela Amara, a Muslim ex-minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's first government, once called the burqa a "prison" ; now she seems to be silent.

Let me ask a simple question to the pseudoliberals who take a soft line on the veil and the burqa.

Politicians soon realised, though, that to use this argument would be to accept that the burqa is a religious prescription of Islam.

Others worry that women, who are often under domestic pressure to wear the burqa, would be unfairly punished.

The (communist) chairman of the parliamentary commission, which is due to report at the end of January, favours a burqa ban.

For Sarkozy and his friends, the burqa is no joke. It's dangerous and illegal.

Caretaker ministers have taken contentious decisions, pushing a ban on wearing the burqa in public and going to war in Libya.

Now that Mr Sarkozy has publicly condemned the burqa, the chances of a ban have risen sharply.

A few years ago, she was draped in a burqa.

In the rest of the Middle East, most women don a veil of one kind or another, though almost none wears the burqa.

The French Senate recently approved a law banning veils that cover the face, including the burqa, worn by some Muslim women.

Muslim women in the French government, however, back the idea of a ban on the burqa.

The French government moved ahead with plans to ban the burqa, which is worn by a small number of Muslim women, in all public places.

The country passed a law this month that will ban the wearing of face-covering burqa-style Muslim veils in public starting in April.

The far-right British National Party also called for a burqa ban in schools.

Today only a tiny handful of Dutch Muslims wear the full-length burqa or niqab.

Since then, between banlieue riots and talk of burqa bans, France has struggled to integrate its minorities.

Now yet another tightening is in the works: a proposed ban on wearing the burqa in any public places.

A possible backlash from the French burqa ban is considered a factor in the expected warning, the security source said.

One thing many women in Europe will be told not to wear in public is the burqa.

France is likely to come in for much outside criticism for its burqa ban.

The first was Mr Sarkozy's firm line on the wearing of the burqa, the Islamic head-to-toe covering, in France.

Europeans' hostility to the burqa is understandable.

No government requires women to cover their faces, but in Afghanistan, the burqa was obligatory under the Taliban.

Guidelines in the pamphlet forbid police from asking women to remove their burqa or full-face veil in the street.

European governments are entitled to limit women's rights to wear the burqa.

For six months, a cross-party parliamentary inquiry has been holding hearings about the burqa.

I don't think people realize that wearing the burqa is a choice for many Islam women.

It is not the burqa alone that is being undermined and discredited but Islamic dress entirely.

The burqa ban will take effect in the spring, renewing strains in the heavily Muslim suburbs.

She slipped off her powder-blue burqa and laid it on the rear seat.

it is un-australian. . . rally condemns push to ban burqa.

Under the 2004 law, the burqa is already banned in public schools, as it is on identity cards.

"The burqa is not a religious sign, " Mr Sarkozy said last year, but rather a "sign of subservience, a sign of debasement" of women.

President Nicolas Sarkozy declared last year that the burqa was "not welcome on French soil" .

The burqa is 'a sign of enslavement and debasement , ' Mr. Sarkozy said last year .

Did you wear a burqa when you lived in Saudi Arabia?

France's ban on the burqa