At first, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted burqas banned in all instances, but he has now stepped back to a more moderate position, seeking to have Parliament pass a law banning the full-body veil in public places and on public transportation.
The French Parliament just completed six months of hearings promoted by a member of Parliament on the so-called burqa controversy.
Many of France’s Islam-phobic policy changes over the last decade have been promoted under the banner of secularism, a founding value of the French Republic. In 2004, for example, France banned the hijab, the headscarf typically worn by Muslim women in public schools.
Isolated, this law fits with the French desire to maintain the commons as a religiously neutral space and encourage gender equality, but in the broader context of increasing xenophobia and heightened vigilance over immigration, the hijab ban came off as an attack on the visual, religious identity of French Muslim women.
Now a draft bill is under consideration of French Parliament imposing a fine of Euro 700 on any woman wearing burqa covering her whole body in any public place and her husband twice as much if he forces hear to wear burqa. This is for the first time that women would be penalized for wearing burqa.
