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Thread: France looking at banning Mohammedan face veils

  1. #1

    Default France looking at banning Mohammedan face veils

    France MPs' report backs Muslim face veil ban

    A French parliamentary committee has recommended a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils.

    The committee's near 200-page report has proposed a ban in hospitals, schools, government offices and on public transport.

    It also recommends that anyone showing visible signs of "radical religious practice" should be refused residence cards and citizenship.

    The interior ministry says just 1,900 women in France wear the full veils.

    In its report, the committee said requiring women to cover their faces was against the French republican principles of secularism and equality.

    "The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable. We must condemn this excess," the report said.

    The commission called on parliament to adopt a formal resolution stating that the face veil was "contrary to the values of the republic" and proclaiming that "all of France is saying 'no' to the full veil".

    Presenting the report to the French National Assembly, speaker Bernard Accoyer said the face veil had too many negative connotations.


    "It is the symbol of the repression of women, and... of extremist fundamentalism.
    "This divisive approach is a denial of the equality between men and women and a rejection of co-existence side-by-side, without which our republic is nothing."

    The report is expected to be followed by the drafting of a bill and a parliamentary debate on the issue.
    The BBC's Hugh Schofield, in Paris, says the reasoning behind the report is to make it as impractical as possible for women in face veils to go about their daily business.

    There is also a fear that an outright ban would not only be difficult to implement but would be distasteful and could make France a target for terrorism, our correspondent says.

    France has an estimated five million Muslims - the largest such population in Western Europe.

    Months of debate
    The report follows months of public debate, including President Nicolas Sarkozy's intervention, saying all-encompassing veils were "not welcome in France".

    However, he did not explicitly call for a ban, saying "no-one should feel stigmatised" by any eventual law.
    Opinion polls suggest a majority of French people support a full ban.

    However, the parliamentary deputies have recommended that - for now - restrictions should be limited.
    The committee suggests a ban inside public buildings, with those who defy the ban denied whatever services are on offer there - for example state benefits.

    There are several types of headscarves and veils for Muslim women - those that cover the face being the niqab and the burka. In France, the niqab is the version most commonly worn.

    The niqab usually leaves the eyes clear. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf and sometimes a separate eye veil.

    The burka covers the entire face and body with just a mesh screen to see through.

    The issue has divided France's political parties.

    The Socialist opposition has come out officially against a ban, saying it would be difficult to enforce. It says it is opposed to full veils in principle, but some members have expressed fears about any ruling that could stigmatise Muslim women.

    Meanwhile, the head of Mr Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party has already presented a bill in parliament supporting a full ban on grounds of security.
    Interesting to see if this passes.
    In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
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  2. #2
    I like the idea that being forced to wear them is demeaning, a sign of repression, and all that jazz...

    but if they refuse services to women that wear them, doesn't that put even more control into their husband's hands?

  3. #3
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    I doubt that, because many of those services are personal. You can't let your husband travel for you on the Paris Metro, you can't let your husband fill in for you if you're called in for a talk with your social worker. The idea behind this is very simple; if you defy the basic rules of society (and in France that would mean; you defy secularism) then society has no obligations to support you in any way.
    Congratulations America

  4. #4
    And you don't think that would lead to the women just not leaving the house? Ever.
    We're stuck in a bloody snowglobe.

  5. #5
    You can't let your husband travel for you on the Paris Metro, you can't let your husband fill in for you if you're called in for a talk with your social worker.
    The end result being that she doesn't travel on the Paris Metro or see her social worker.

    The idea behind this is very simple; if you defy the basic rules of society (and in France that would mean; you defy secularism) then society has no obligations to support you in any way.
    So, there we have it, an argument for theocracy in a state where enough people are religious.
    When the sky above us fell
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by littlelolligagged View Post
    And you don't think that would lead to the women just not leaving the house? Ever.
    Other people have pointed it out Hazir, if the law's intent is to keep women from being oppressed via the ban, then instead of their husbands/other males forcing them to wear the garments in public, they're just going to force them to stay home and wear them there...

    ...you're expecting irrational people to behave rationally how you would...
    . . .

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    Really? Unlike you I have a general idea of how many of the assholes who force their wives to wear these things live on welfare and/or give their wives any freedom at all. They will be living with some dire consequences themselves. Like the reduction of their family income because their wives don't present themselves.
    Congratulations America

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    Quote Originally Posted by littlelolligagged View Post
    And you don't think that would lead to the women just not leaving the house? Ever.
    Why wouldn't they leave the house, they just can't use public transport or go into places that are run or financed by the state.


    If anything it's an incentive for their husbands to finally try and find a job.
    Congratulations America

  9. #9
    Isnt this a bit of a mad reaction against something relatively trivial?

    Isnt it rather tilting at windmills to go through all this merely for the satisfaction of stopping 2000 women covering their faces?

    How many burkha'd muslim women have been a source of religious or secular unrest?

    Isnt it also just a matter of singling out a population that is traditionally already isolated and disenfranchised?

    Also other questions.
    "Son," he said without preamble, "never trust a man who doesn't drink, because he's probably a self-righteous sort, a man who thinks he knows right from wrong all the time. Some of them are good men, but in the name of goodness, they cause most of the suffering in the world. They're the judges, the meddlers. And, son, never trust a man who drinks but refuses to get drunk. They're usually afraid of something deep down inside, either that they're a coward or a fool or mean and violent. You can't trust a man who's afraid of himself. But sometimes, son, you can trust a man who occasionally kneels before a toilet. The chances are that he is learning something about humility and his natural human foolishness, about how to survive himself. It's damned hard for a man to take himself too seriously when he's heaving his guts into a dirty toilet bowl.

  10. #10
    Has France already banned those little Jewish hats?
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  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Being View Post
    Has France already banned those little Jewish hats?
    Yamulkes are good at hiding male pattern baldness. What would they do next, ban wigs for orthodox Jewish women, and chemo patients, and women who just like to wear wigs, and men with bad rugs? bah.

    This is like deja vu, or did we try this convo at the other place before the thread was closed?

    Try going to a frigid climate where a baclava means not having your face freeze and fall off. Or a desert climate where dust storms make you cover your mouth. Or going to the 7-11 during Halloween.

    Cover up, wear a veil or a clever mask, do your thing on the street; but when you enter an enclosed public place (including a public school, a bank, or a store) you have to show your face.

    Wouldn't that be the middle ground compromise that makes sense?

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Yamulkes are good at hiding male pattern baldness. What would they do next, ban wigs for orthodox Jewish women, and chemo patients, and women who just like to wear wigs, and men with bad rugs? bah.

    This is like deja vu, or did we try this convo at the other place before the thread was closed?

    Try going to a frigid climate where a baclava means not having your face freeze and fall off. Or a desert climate where dust storms make you cover your mouth. Or going to the 7-11 during Halloween.

    Cover up, wear a veil or a clever mask, do your thing on the street; but when you enter an enclosed public place (including a public school, a bank, or a store) you have to show your face.

    Wouldn't that be the middle ground compromise that makes sense?
    No, I think the middle ground compromise would not make sense in this case. Effectivly, France won't let people choose their own clothes. If there's no compelling reason to tell these people to how to dress other than 2000 body tents make 60 million French squimish, then I think the best solution is for everyone to relax. Middle ground be damned.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Being View Post
    Has France already banned those little Jewish hats?
    In all educational institutes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tontoe View Post
    No, I think the middle ground compromise would not make sense in this case. Effectivly, France won't let people choose their own clothes. If there's no compelling reason to tell these people to how to dress other than 2000 body tents make 60 million French squimish, then I think the best solution is for everyone to relax. Middle ground be damned.
    And you live in a country where it took a revolution to get the priests out of power?
    Congratulations America

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    In all educational institutes.

    And you live in a country where it took a revolution to get the priests out of power?
    Seriously, France has banned Jewish yarmulkes in all educational institutes?


    edit and if you want to get technical, Being lives in the US. (I have no idea where Tontoe lives.) The Protestant Reformation didn't begin here.
    Last edited by GGT; 01-27-2010 at 09:54 AM.

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    You're not allowed to wear anything overtly religious in French schools or universities. The reason why the French are allergic to veils, is because they are allergic to religion trying to move outside of the purely personal. Whenever people make demands of the state on the basis of their religion, people expect the state to deny them whatever special treatment it is they demand.

    AFAIK French Presidents would never use a Bible in their inauguration.
    Congratulations America

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Hazir View Post
    And you live in a country where it took a revolution to get the priests out of power?
    It's been 200 years since the French revolution. What say they give it a rest?

    Besides, if 2000 women constitute a threat to French secularism, then France has bigger problems.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tontoe View Post
    It's been 200 years since the French revolution. What say they give it a rest?

    Besides, if 2000 women constitute a threat to French secularism, then France has bigger problems.
    If you seriously think political Islam is not one of the biggest problems that Europe has to deal with then you're sadly mistaken. It is no coincidence that the same men who demand their women to wear these all-covering veils are the same people who reject Western society and all that it stands for. If the French state decides to stop financing those who want to see it destroyed, I think they have made a very wise decision.

    Quote Originally Posted by Steely Glint View Post
    So, there we have it, an argument for theocracy in a state where enough people are religious.
    You know Steely, unlike other people Islamists don't care too much about those minorities at all. I see what they are doing in Turkey, in Istanbul, in my neighbourhood. And I can only wonder how much more they would have done to impress their version of Islam on society if the armed forces hadn't been there breathing over their shoulders.

    Two years ago a mosque was built right down the hill from where my house is. In the middle of an area that has no history of being muslim and where even today the vast majority of people have different ideas about what Islam is than the AKP government. Who would not enter a mosque if they could avoid it. Still we got a mosque, rather than a new school or health center or library.
    Last edited by Hazir; 01-27-2010 at 10:48 PM.
    Congratulations America

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Tontoe View Post
    It's been 200 years since the French revolution. What say they give it a rest?

    Besides, if 2000 women constitute a threat to French secularism, then France has bigger problems.
    France has only been secular since 1905 or so I believe. And the fight to get there was vicious.
    And to keep a state secular you can NEVER ever give it a rest. Never. Cause the pressure is always there.

  19. #19
    That .003% of the population must pose quite a threat. Surely, this will help prevent the otherwise unavoidable conversion of France into an Islamist theocracy.

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    So you're ok with the 'I spit in your face, but I'll take your money anyway' attitude of these people?
    Congratulations America

  21. #21
    Not really, but I doubt what you said describes all of them, and it isn't much of an excuse for doing this anyways. I mean, really? You're supporting a new law out of spite?

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    If they live in France you can be pretty certain it applies to all of them. These people don't work, they live from income support and child benefits. Because they won't adjust to society they can't get a job and they sure as hell always know to find the state's coffers.

    I remember reading a comment from one of these fine people last year who condemned muslims working at supermarkets as hypocrites (that's a biggy in our circles) because they might handling goods with pork or alcohol in them. The girls doing so of course were abandoning their proper destiny in the house.
    Last edited by Hazir; 01-28-2010 at 09:04 AM.
    Congratulations America

  23. #23
    So do something about deadweights taking money from the state's coffers if that's your concern. Making laws like this is not the right way to go about things.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    That .003% of the population must pose quite a threat. Surely, this will help prevent the otherwise unavoidable conversion of France into an Islamist theocracy.
    every little bit helps.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    So do something about deadweights taking money from the state's coffers if that's your concern. Making laws like this is not the right way to go about things.
    The first step to do that is to define what behaviour makes one un-eligible for state benefits.
    Congratulations America

  26. #26
    How about:

    These people don't work, they live from income support and child benefits.
    It'd work better than singling out a cultural group. Unless the money drain thing is really just an excuse.

    I sure as hell doubt that wearing a veil is what causes this. There's a person who works in my building who wears a veil to work every day, so it can't be the veil that causes joblessness.

  27. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    How about:



    It'd work better than singling out a cultural group. Unless the money drain thing is really just an excuse.

    I sure as hell doubt that wearing a veil is what causes this. There's a person who works in my building who wears a veil to work every day, so it can't be the veil that causes joblessness.
    And your building is where in Europe again ?
    Congratulations America

  28. #28
    If people can be productive here while wearing veils, it clearly can't be the veils that's the problem.

  29. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    If people can be productive here while wearing veils, it clearly can't be the veils that's the problem.
    Of course, the state enabling their anti-social behaviour is a core problem. You can't blame me for cheering on when the state tries to make life a little bit less easy for the worst offenders. We're not in the US where the risk of being homeless and hungry if you don't work is very real.
    Congratulations America

  30. #30
    You're singling out a group of people for special harassment because you don't like them? The US has welfare and handouts for childcare too, but people like the ones you describe still work. If this were really the problem, why are you opposed to methods that are more targeted towards drains on the system rather than targetting muslims who dress a certain way?

    I'd like to see a source on your earlier assertion that every single person in France who ever wears a veil is an anti-social permanent welfare recipient, btw.

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