French lawmakers approve full veil ban

PARIS — French lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public spaces, as Europe toughens its approach to integrating Muslim immigrant communities.On the eve of Bastille Day, when France celebrates the birth of what was to become a staunchly secular republic, the 577-seat National Assembly lower house voted by 335 votes to one for a total ban.The bill will now go to the Senate in September, but opponents of the ban in its proposed form worry that it will eventually be overturned by the judges of the Constitutional Council, France's highest legal body.For, while President Nicolas Sarkozy's determination to ban the niqab and the burqa won enough political support to carry it, opponents argue that it breaches French and European human rights legislation.The bill defines public space very broadly, including not just government buildings and public transport, but all streets, markets and thoroughfares, private businesses and entertainment venues.Just ahead of the vote, Socialist lawmaker Francois de Rugy warned that if judges overturned the law it would be a "priceless gift to the fundamentalists we all oppose" and accused the right of electoral grandstanding.But Socialist and Communist deputies did not vote against the bill, they simply abstained, and it sailed through the vote without a hitch.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 po

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