The French Parliament, on the eve of Bastille Day, voted 335 to one in favour of preventing Muslim women wearing a full face-covering veil in public.
The July 13 Le Monde said the new law was strongly supported by the right. The gutless Socialist Party (PS), French Communist Party (PCF) and Green Party, while being “resolutely opposed” to the wearing of the niqab and the burka, abstained.
The PS’s big objection was that the legislation is a “gift for fundamentalists”.
Maybe. Mostly it’s a gift for every racist Islamophobe in Europe.
Anyone who chooses to wear a face covering on religious grounds now faces a fine of 150 Euros or a “citizenship course”. The law does not come into effect until spring 2011 to allow a period of “education”.
There is also a year in prison and a fine of 30,000 Euros for anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a veil, a penalty which is doubled if the “victim is a minor”.
This bit of legislation is ostensibly to “liberate” the 2000 women, in a country with a population of 60 million, who cover their faces.
The one thing that is absolutely certain is that this law will encourage many thousands more women to start covering up as their way of telling the state it has no right to tell them what they should or should not wear.
The racist British media, the far-right English Defence League and other racists across Europe will be cracking open the champagne.
[Reprinted from Liammacuaid.wordpress.com.]