French lawmakers to approve full veil ban

PARIS — French lawmakers were poised to vote Tuesday to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public spaces, as Europe toughens its approach to integrating Muslim immigrant communities.Coming on the eve of Bastille Day, when France celebrates the birth of what was to become a staunchly secular republic, the law was expected to have an easy passage through the National Assembly lower house.Once past this hurdle the bill will go to the Senate, which is expected to approve it in September, but it will then face a stiffer challenge in front of the Constitutional Council, France's highest legal body.For, while President Nicolas Sarkozy's determination to ban the niqab and the burqa has won enough political support, opponents argue that it breaches French and European human rights legislation.Similar laws are pending in Belgium, Spain and some Italian municipalities, but the ban is particularly sensitive in France, whose rundown city suburbs are home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.Last week, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told lawmakers debating the bill that its adoption would assert French values and help to better integrate Muslim communities into the national way of life.She said being forced to wear the niqab or the burqa "amounts to being cut off from society and rejecting the very spirit of the French republic that is founded on a desire to live together.""At a time where our societies are becoming more global and complex, the French people are pondering the future of their nation. Our responsibility is to show vigilance and reaffirm our commonly-shared values," she said.Critics say the law exploits a non problem -- only about 1,900 women among France's five to six million Muslims wear a veil -- in a bid to pander to anti-immigration voters and to distract attention from France's economic woes.Most French Muslims come from France's former colonies in North and West Africa, where wearing the veil is rare, rather than from the Arabia peninsula or Pakistan where niqabs and burqas are a cultu

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