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Fr3shjive
09-14-2010, 01:00 PM
PARIS — The French Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil in public, but the leaders of both parliamentary houses said they had asked a special council to first ensure the measure passes constitutional muster amid concerns its tramples on religious freedoms.

The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill, which has already passed in the lower chamber, the National Assembly. It will need President Nicolas Sarkozy's signature.

"This law was the object of long and complex debates," the Senate president, Gerard Larcher, and National Assembly head Bernard Accoyer said in a joint statement explaining their move. They said in a joint statement that they want to be certain there is "no uncertainty" about it conforming to the constitution.

Many Muslims believe the latest legislation is one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate. Some women have vowed to wear a full-face veil despite the law.

The measure would outlaw face-covering veils in streets, including those worn by tourists from the Middle East and elsewhere. It is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values — and its way of life.

Kenza Drider, however, says she'll flirt with arrest to wear her veil as she pleases.

"It is a law that is unlawful," said Drider, a mother of four from Avignon, in southern France. "It is ... against individual liberty, freedom of religion, liberty of conscience," she said.

"I will continue to live my life as I always have with my full veil," she told Associated Press Television News.

Drider was the only woman who wears a full-faced veil to be interviewed by a parliamentary panel that spent six months deciding whether to move ahead with legislation.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatize the French Muslim population, which at an estimated 5 million is the largest in western Europe. Numerous Muslim women who wear the face-covering veil have said they are now being harassed in the streets.

Expert: it 'will officialize Islamophobia'

Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who heads the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, says that Muslims in France are already targeted by hate-mongers and the ban on face-covering veils "will officialize Islamophobia."

"With the identity crisis that France has today, the scapegoat is the Muslim," he said.

Ironically, instead of helping some women integrate, the measure may keep them cloistered in their homes to avoid exposing their faces in public.

"I won't go out. I'll send people to shop for me. I'll stay home, very simply," said Oum Al Khyr, who wears a "niqab" that hides all but the eyes.

"I'll spend my time praying," said the single woman "over 45" who lives in Montreuil on Paris' eastern edge. "I'll exclude myself from society when I wanted to live in it."

The law banning the veil would take effect only after a six-month period.

The Interior Ministry estimates the number of women who fully cover themselves at some 1,900, with a quarter of them converts to Islam and two-thirds with French nationality.

The French parliament wasted no time in working to get a ban in place, opening an inquiry shortly after Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy said in June 2009 that full veils that hide the face are "not welcome"

Fine also for forced use
The bill calls for 150 euro ($185) fines or citizenship classes for any woman caught covering her face, or both.

It also carries stiff penalties for anyone such as husbands or brothers convicted of forcing the veil on a woman. The 30,000 euro ($38,400) fine and year in prison are doubled if the victim is a minor.

It was unclear, however, how authorities planned to enforce such a law.

"I will accept the fine with great pleasure," said Drider, vowing to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if she gets caught.




Sounds like BS to me. I can understand banning the burka in certain situations but to have a full on ban is ridiculous to me.

I'd like to hear some arguments for and against this though.

specsaregood
09-14-2010, 01:06 PM
So, the french will officially have "fashion police" now eh?

Edit: oh and trampling on peoples desires to express their religion is historically a great way to not turn them towards extemism. :rolleyes:

freshjiva
09-14-2010, 01:24 PM
I don't quite understand why the French government doesn't let people dress the way they want to dress.

Fozz
09-14-2010, 01:46 PM
I sure am f***ing glad I don't live in France.

The basis of this law is racism (yes I know Islam is not a race, but this is an attempt to get Muslims to act more white).

07041826
09-14-2010, 01:51 PM
"Compassion's just a nicer way of looking down your nose.."
-What to Do OK GO

Brian4Liberty
09-14-2010, 01:55 PM
"I won't go out. I'll send people to shop for me. I'll stay home, very simply," said Oum Al Khyr, who wears a "niqab" that hides all but the eyes.


Anyone ever see one of these in public? Pretty darn creepy. It's almost like someone is peeping at you from another room. Nothing but a couple of eyes, and they tend to stare. There are some strange psychological factors at play with those things.

Anyway, she should have the liberty to wear that if she wants.

Toureg89
09-14-2010, 02:07 PM
I don't quite understand why the French government doesn't let people dress the way they want to dress.
because they are nationalistic and xenophobic.

didn't you see what they're doing to the Gypsies...deporting them, lol.

Baptist
09-14-2010, 02:14 PM
First they came for those sporting burkas.
Next they came for those opposing neked scanners.

No worries. After they bored scoping out our neked bods, I'm sure they will bring back the right of leaders to rape our women on our marriage night.

JohnEngland
09-14-2010, 02:16 PM
I sure am f***ing glad I don't live in France.

The basis of this law is racism (yes I know Islam is not a race, but this is an attempt to get Muslims to act more white).

I don't think it has anything to do with racism. Sounds like something the far-left would say: "RAAACISM!!1oneone"

I think the basis of this French law is being able to see everyone's face. The burka is a silly, oppressive piece of clothing.

Of course, I wouldn't have it banned though. The government has no right to decide what you can and cannot wear.

lester1/2jr
09-14-2010, 02:19 PM
I see them around here in Boston in the hospital district. it doesn't really bother me.

djdellisanti4
09-14-2010, 02:28 PM
I wonder who the one guy who voted against it was.... Ronaldo Paul?

Revontulet
09-14-2010, 02:38 PM
I read somewhere that a fund is being set up to pay the fines of anyone charged for wearing a veil, good on them whoever is doing that.

BlackTerrel
09-14-2010, 02:44 PM
The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill

So who is the French Ron Paul who voted no?

Andrew-Austin
09-14-2010, 02:45 PM
I think the basis of this French law is being able to see everyone's face. The burka is a silly, oppressive piece of clothing.


All France has to do is make sure people are free to wear what they want.

Its not oppressive if the women agree to wear it. If its more of a "my husband makes me wear it" thing, then they are free to leave their husbands.


This is pretty much a paranoid, silly effort at enforcing gender equality. If Muslim women want to 'subjugate' themselves to such loony antiquated beliefs, then that is their choice.

LibertyVox
09-14-2010, 03:01 PM
LOL, Rest assured this current wave of Islamophobia and language of genocide used against moslem folk is also an import from Europe. I said it before and say it again: Europe with the exception of a few countries is just a glamorised 3rd world: in that the elites have a very 3rd world mentality.
And rest assured genocidal fanatics (including the bloggers who are part and parcel of this idiotic hysteria) imported this from Europe. But then again, I wouldn't say domestically within the US, this is the first time a group of people has been targetted for escape goating. The mighty dif. here is the US constitution.
Our Founding fathers though full of faults, contradictions were way ahead of their time. No wonder they broke ties with the Old World.

Still to be fair I must say this is mighty "progressive" of France that they only want to target the full face Veil lol.
I guess the more traditional and common female moslem dress code which is the hijab wouldn't have been feasible since nuns wear it too, and so did the Virgin mother. lol
Can't show scorn for God's mother right? After all she too was a middel eastern woman, full of her mysterious middle easter ways.

But of course this is because France still has a minute minute cultural leanings of Catholic Church. Cultural.
This doesn't apply to say ...oh IDK...Netherlands? Where the "godless" (hint: Ann COulter :P) "socialist" xenophobes such as His Highness Geert Wilders (the veritable Demigod of the most disgusting Izlamophobes here in the US--given that they too are whole hearted collectivists whether or not tey like the term or how much they may faux glorify Ayn Rand-- want to ban and tax Hijab altogether.

It would be a bane for America, if collectivism triumphs here.