Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Francia - proibito il velo sui mezzi pubblici ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/25/france-report-veil-burka-ban
French cross-party committee to recommend partial ban on full veil
Report given to parliament dismisses outright ban in favour of barring 
anyone using public services who refuses to uncover face
France will today take the first step towards barring Muslim women from 
wearing the full veil when using public services, but will stop short of 
calling for an outright ban after critics argued that such a move would 
be socially divisive and hard to enforce.
A cross-party committee of MPs was set up last year to explore the 
controversial issue in France of burkas and niqabs. The committee will 
recommend to ­parliament that Muslim women should be allowed to continue 
covering their faces in the street.
Its final report will, however, recommend that anyone covering their 
face be barred from entering public sector property, including hospitals 
and schools, or using public transport.
"The full veil is the visible part of this black tide of 
fundamentalism," said Communist MP André Gerin, the committee's 
president, in an interview last week. Eric Raoult, a rightwing MP 
heavily involved in the report, said yesterday that the imposition of a 
full ban – if it were to occur – would have to wait. "We have tried to 
do something that is coherent and enforceable," he said, adding that a 
ban that was unenforceable would "make everyone look ridiculous".
Under the proposals, a woman who fails to remove her veil inside when 
using any realm of the statethose public servicin such cases would not 
face a fine for breaking the law, but would be refused access to the 
service. She would not, for instance, be allowed to collect her child 
benefit payments or take the bus.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has repeatedly said that the full veil 
"is not welcome" on French soil, is believed to favour this partial 
legislation, rather than more radical suggestions from recalcitrant 
members of his rightwing UMP party.
The president has been warned that an outright ban on the full veil 
could be found to be unconstitutional and almost impossible to put into 
practice. Sarkozy, who has stressed the need to find a solution in which 
"no one feels stigmatised", is also keen to play down speculation that 
his policies are doing more to aggravate social divisions than to bridge 
them.
Steps to ban the burka, which have been opposed by the Muslim Council of 
France and other religious groups, have coincided with the French 
government's "big debate" on national identity. Critics of the 
government, from the left and right, have accused Sarkozy of encouraging 
dangerous rhetoric which has seen the country's 5 million Muslims become 
the object of increasing critiques.
Tomorrow's cross-party report – whose contents were leaked to the French 
press last week – looks likely to recommend the ­passing of a 
non-binding parliamentary resolution setting out the country's 
"symbolic" opposition to the full veil.
After that, steps should be taken to vote into law a series of 
"separate, but multiple bans" which would make clear the garment's 
practical incompatibility with French values of sexual equality and 
freedom, the report will say.
"We have to make life impossible for them in order to curb the 
phenomenon," one MP told the French daily Le Figaro. However, opponents 
have said that banning the full veil either outright or partially would 
serve merely to reinforce the isolation of women already partially 
alienated from mainstream society.
The 32-member panel, which has been meeting and questioning experts on 
the issue for the past six months, was set up by Sarkozy last summer 
after he declared that the full veil was "a sign of subservience [and] 
debasement".
Gerin has not made any secret of his desire to see a ban on what he has 
denounced as a "walking prison". His feelings have tapped into growing 
concern in France over an item of clothing worn by a small minority of 
Muslim women.
According to police figures, no more than 2,000 women – most of them 
young and a quarter of them converts – wear a face-covering veil. But in 
a country which places a high value on laïcité – secularism – and which 
in 2004 banned headscarves in schools, it is unsurprising that such an 
overt display of religion has raised eyebrows. The major political 
parties, leading feminists and even one prominent imam have made clear 
their dislike for the full veil, which they view as an affront to 
women's rights and a sign of an emerging strand of fundamentalist Islam.
Despite wide-ranging opposition to the garment and polls showing that 
most French citizens favour a ban, opinions have differed on how to go 
about discouraging women from covering their faces.
The Socialist party, while condemning the full veil, refused to support 
a ban.
The UMP's Jean-François Copé, a politician with half an eye on the 2012 
presidential elections, grabbed the headlines with a proposal to outlaw 
the full veil anywhere on French streets and to fine wearers €750 each – 
a suggestion rejected by the committee.

 French cross-party committee to recommend partial ban on full veil
sono dei veri polli, questi dell'UMP
Basterebbe facessero passare una legge come quella italiana, che obbliga le 
persone ad essere riconoscibili