France Bans the Burqa
Only a small fraction of France's Muslim population wears the burqa. Nevertheless, many French feel it poses a direct threat to their values.
On Tuesday, July 13th, the French Parliament officially passed a law banning the burqa, with a vote of 336 supporting to 1 opposing. The law, however, does not officially stipulate that the burqa itself is illegal, but rather, that wearing full-face covering veils in public is illegal.
Of course, it is widely accepted that this is the government’s not-so-covert attempt to restrict Muslims from wearing what the majority of French citizens regard as not just an article of clothing, but as an offense to French values of liberté and égalité – not to mention, general public safety.
Proponents of the ban assert that in addition to functioning as a pseudo-vested prison, the garment itself is a direct threat to security. “Can you imagine how easy it would be to walk on the metro with a bomb concealed under that faceless robe?” says a French friend, who surprisingly claims to be pretty neutral when it comes to the ban. “I understand both sides of the argument, but at the end of the day, only some 500 people wear the burqa in France…”
France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, a small fraction of whom wear the burqa. Nevertheless, many French citizens feel that it poses a direct threat to traditional French values and should not be tolerated in daily public life.
The burqa has been a long-contested issue in French society, and continues to be contested by Amnesty International, despite the overwhelming majority passage of the ban.
John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, claims that, “A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab as an expression of their identity or beliefs.”
Another opponent of the ban, a professor in Paris, claimed in an interview with FrumForum that, “It is dangerous when the government starts dictating what it believes to be imposed – the burqa – by some sort of subjective analysis of Arab culture and Muslim religion.”
However, despite the professor’s assertions, it is precisely the designated role of the government to evaluate potential threats to its state’s values and security. That is the reason that governments around the world have banned certain religious practices such as female genital mutilation: it is dangerous and contrary to states’ established values, which aim to uphold standards of safety and equality.
Needless to say, the general European consensus has spoken out against the burqa being tolerated in daily life.
The French are not the only ones who see the burqa as a threat to their society, values, and traditions… Spain and Belgium’s governments have also recently voted to ban the “full-face veil.”