Tag: France

France’s proposed ban on the burqa infringes on Muslim women’s rights.

Christopher Hitchens defends French lawmakers’ attempt to ban the burqa.

French judges fined the Church of Scientology almost a million dollars on Tuesday for defrauding vulnerable followers but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France.

Mayors in several French towns say they are under pressure from Muslim residents to oppose the proposed ban on burqas and niqab veils - as they fear it will prompt even more women to cover up in defiance.

A ban on the burka in France would help stem the spread of the cancer of radical Islam, a female Muslim minister says. Ms Amara said she was “in favour of the burka not existing in my country”. The comments come as French MPs hold hearings on whether to ban the garment, which covers the body from head to toe.

A woman in a Paris suburb was banned from a public pool for wearing a full-body burkini swimsuit, igniting a new round of national debate pitting religious freedom against secular values. Emerainville’s mayor and the pool management contend that the burkini ban was invoked strictly because of hygiene concerns, just as shorts, rather than Speedos, are not allowed, because they can be worn outside the pool area.

France’s struggle with Islamic dress moved to the swimming pool today after a 35-year-old woman was banned from bathing in the head-to-toe swimsuit known as the burkini.

Al Qaeda’s north African wing threatened revenge against France for launching a “war” against Muslim women who wear full burqas that cover them from head to toe, according to a Web statement posted in the group’s name.

We often point to France as a beacon of secularism, a country with a constitution that guarantees religious rights but ensures that they are completely separate from the functions of the state.

The government takes on a “walking prison”
When the French government decided in 2004 to ban the Muslim headscarf in state schools and other public buildings, it set off a heated debate over religious expression and women’s rights in a secular state. Now Nicolas Sarkozy has sparked another by calling the burqa, a head-to-toe Islamic garment, “a sign of subjugation;of debasement that is not welcome on French territory.”
Mr Sarkozy’s comments came after a group of deputies, led by Andre Gerin, a Communist, had called for a parliamentary inquiry into the wearing of the burqa, with a view to a possible ban. This would mean in all public places, since it is already banned in state institutions under the 2004 law. The deputies called burqas “veritable walking prisons.”

Discussion of the French Scientology trial.

Officials from the Church of Scientology’s French affiliate are in court this week, charged with fraud. But is it a case of religious intolerance?

The Church of Scientology has been accused of manipulating followers into handing over their savings in a trial that could see the church banned from France.

The Church of Scientology could be dissolved in France if it is convicted in a trial that opened Monday in a Paris court, where the group and seven of its French leaders stand charged of organized fraud and illegal pharmaceutical activity.