PARIS — During a recent protest in Marseille, seven people were suddenly surrounded by the police, bundled into a van and brought in for questioning. Their offense was not the demonstration itself but the balaclavas they were wearing, a violation of the French law banning full-face veils in public places, passed in April 2011.
Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Kenza Drider, an outspoken critic of the law, continues to wear the niqab as part of what she considersher religious duty as a married Muslim woman. She called the ban “completely ridiculous.”
From the beginning, critics warned that the law, in addition to depriving Muslim women of their rights, would further inflame tensions already raised to a high pitch by the economic crisis, riots and lingering fears of terrorism, on one side, and accusations of racism on the other. A little more than a year later, however, defenders and critics agree that the actual impact of the law has been far less dramatic than the politicized prologue, largely because of tolerance from most Muslims and the police.
France’s experience with the so-called burqabill is in many ways a proxy for the country’s — and Europe’s — ability to integrate its Muslim population, the largest on the Continent. The Belgian government hopes to enact a similar ban on the niqab — which covers every part of the face except the eyes, and is popularly and mistakenly called a burqa — and the Dutch government has said it hopes to pass such a law next year.
Since the law went into effect, 425 women wearing full-face veils have been fined up to 150 euros ($188) each and 66 others have received warnings, said Pierre-Henry Brandet, spokesman for the Interior Ministry. But even the police concede that they rarely enforce it, having no desire to further increase tensions. In “the great majority of cases,” Mr. Brandet said, women lift their veils when the police ask in what he called “a serene and respectful way on both sides.” Some women who wear the niqab say that for the most part the police know them and leave them alone.
Categories: Awareness, Behaviour, Discrimination, Double Standard, Equal Rights, Europe, France