PARIS (AP) — One runs her own company, another is a housewife and a third, a divorcee, raises her children by herself. Like nearly 2,000 other Muslim women who wear face-covering veils in France, their lives will soon change and they are worried.
On Wednesday, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie presents the text of a bill to the Cabinet banning Muslim veils that cover the face, the first formal step in a process to forbid such attire in all public places in France, including the streets. It calls for €150 ($185) fines and, in some cases, citizenship classes for women who run afoul of the law.
The measure notably creates a new offense, inciting to hide the face, and anyone convicted of forcing a woman to wear such a veil risks a year in prison and a €15,000 ($18,555) fine, according to a copy of the text.
Although the Interior Ministry estimates there are only 1,900 women who cover their faces with veils, the planned law would be another defining moment for Islam in France as the nation tries to bring its Muslim population — at an estimated 5 million, the largest in western Europe — into the mainstream, even by force of law.
"If the law is voted, I won’t take off my veil … No one will dictate my way of life" but God, said Najat, a divorcee, who gave her age as "45 plus.". She was one of a half-dozen women who, in a rare move, met with reporters on Tuesday, a day before the bill went before the Cabinet, to express their worries about changes they say will impact their lives at its essence.
Like others, she refused to give her full name. All said they fear for their safety in an increasingly tense climate. Najat was among those who said she has been increasingly harassed since debate over the planned law began nearly a year ago.
Despite the acrimonious debate that is sure to come, there is little doubt the measure will become law. The bill is to go before parliament in July. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last June that such veils are "not welcome" in France, wants a law banning them on the books as soon as possible.
However, the text, which could be amended in the process, foresees a six-month delay in its application to explain the law and mediate with recalcitrant women who cover their faces, which means it wouldn’t take effect until early in 2011.
A similar veil ban is in the works in neighboring Belgium. But France has already walked this road, banning Muslim headscarves, and other "ostentatious" religious symbols, from classrooms in 2004.
The bespectacled Najat, with a French mother and Moroccan father, said she has covered her face with a veil for 10 years. Najat said that because she is divorced and raising her children alone no one "can say this is imposed on me."
"I won’t leave" France if the veil is outlawed. "Why should I leave?" Najat said, waving her French passport.
The women predicted that their "sisters," other women who veil themselves, would hide out in their homes so as not to get caught breaking the law. Several said they would take their case to the European Court of Human Rights if arrested.
With the law, "They are giving people the right to attack us," said Kenza Drider, of Avignon in the south, who is married with four children. She was the only fully veiled woman to be interviewed by a parliamentary panel during a six-month inquiry.
"To tell a sister you can’t wear this veil is to say you can’t practice your religion," said a woman identifying herself as Oum Al Khyr, of Montreuil, on the edge of eastern Paris. "Already, we are no longer free," she said, adding that some friends fear leaving their homes.
The bill turns on the "dignity of the person" rather than security issues as had been widely speculated. It was unclear if that would make it more vulnerable to constitutional attacks.
The French government decided to risk running up against the constitution despite a warning from the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, which said March 30 that a full ban would likely not pass constitutional muster. It confirmed its "unfavorable opinion" on a general ban in a final report last week, according to the daily Le Figaro.
Muslim leaders have said the face-covering veil is not required by Islam, but have also warned that a ban on the full veil risks stigmatizing all Muslims.
In a country where fashion counts, and is often revealing, there is a visceral reaction among some French to veils that cover women from head to toe and conceal the face, sometimes including the eyes.
Critics of the garb say such dress is an affront to gender equality and undermines the nation’s secular foundations by bringing religion into the streets. Others say the face-covering veil is the gateway to radical Islam.
The six women seated at a table tackled such arguments, saying that their dignity cannot be dictated by the state, that they do not represent a terrorist threat and that secularism should give them the right to practice their religion as they see fit. They correctly note that women make up less than 20 percent of the 577 lawmakers in the French National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.
"They say they are going to free us," said Drider. But "it’s the state who will force us into cloisters. We will have to sue for sequestration."
Karima, 31, who runs an import-export company, said she has been wearing a burqa-like veil for 16 years — more than half her life, she notes — and "I don’t even know how to take it off."
