Fashion on trial: France debates whether women can wear niqabs

In the bustling farmers' market of this northern Paris suburb, the fault lines of French Islam intersect. Women in slacks and sleeveless shirts haggle with a fabric vendor who wears a shapeless black robe and tightly drawn black scarf over her hair and forehead. Two stately women from Mali finger the apricots at a fruit stand, each of them wearing an elaborately tied turban that matches the bold patterns of their tight-fitting ankle-length dresses. No one at the bustling market is wearing a niqab , the face-covering garment that some French politicians would like to banish from public view. But at the stall where he sells various configurations of Muslim scarves and veils, Hamid Yazid said that more and more of his customers ask for it. "I'm a businessman, so I never ask them why," said Mr. Yazid, who displays his wares on a line of identical mannequin heads. "I believe in freedom of expression. You want to wear shorts, go ahead. You want to wear a veil, you are welcome to it." That live-and-let-live view is about to be put to the test, as France plunges into a divisive debate over whether the state should get involved in what a Muslim woman can and cannot wear outside her home. The National Assembly, with the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy, recently formed a special commission on the niqab , or, as it is commonly misnamed here, the burka . Its first hearings will be held next week and continue throughout the month, with recommendations expected before the end of the year. Generally, parliamentary hearings are not open to the public, but no decision has been made on whether the inquiry will be closed. Like the debate over the 2004 law that outlawed Muslim head scarves in French public schools, the question of the niqab broadly pits the ideal of a secular state against the equally treasured guarantees of freedom of religion and expression. Muslim scholars and political leaders, while openly critical of the niqab , have warned that any move to legislate a ban would alienate the vast majority of French Muslims who have no interest in wearing it. But across the political spectrum, in the National Assembly and among women's groups, an alternative view has taken hold that French society cannot tolerate women hiding their faces behind garments such as the niqab in the name of religion or free choice. "The wearing of a burka is the equivalent of someone walking around with a sandwich board proclaiming that men and women are not equal," said Sandrine Mazetier, a Paris deputy who handles immigration issues for the Socialist Party in the National Assembly. "That kind of speech, like racist speech, is not allowed here." But guidelines might be a more acceptable option than an outright prohibition, which in this case would concern just one group: Muslims. "The role of this fact-finding commission is to look at all possible means of dealing with a subject that disturbs the public order," Ms. Mazetier said. "After all, someone who walks around nude is going to get arrested for that, but we haven't passed a specific law against nudists." The niqab , usually worn with a veil that covers the forehead like a tight hood, leaves just a narrow opening and sometimes only a slit for the eyes. Its origins are in the Persian Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. The severe Saudi interpretation of Islam, along with its dictates on how women dress, has made inroads in recent years through the Salafist movement in North African countries such as Algeria, where a majority of French Muslims have their roots and family connections. There are no figures on how prevalent the niqab has become in France. But it is still remarkable enough that a woman wearing one draws stares and comments. Several women in a full-face veil described themselves in interviews with French television last week as French-born converts to Islam who choose to cover their faces. Others were young women who said they feel protected under the full veil. "Converts sometimes want to be more royal than the king, and with other Muslims, want to show they are more pure," said Soheib Bencheikh, a noted scholar and former mufti, or chief religious leader, of the French Mediterranean city of Marseilles. "In another sense," he added, "it may be a trend, a fashion, like piercing or tattoos. Tomorrow there might be something else." But Mr. Bencheikh, like other prominent Muslim figures, said he is as disturbed as many non-Muslims by the appearance of the niqab . His view is that the Koran calls on women to be modest, but does not require any particular kind of clothing. Those who say they hide their faces behind a veil on religious grounds, he said, are influenced by the "cancer" of Salafism and driven "either by ignorance or fanaticism." France's insistence on separation between religion and state, which first restricted the influence of the once-omnipresent Catholic Church in the late 19th century, protects French Islam, according to Mr. Bencheikh. "Thanks to this fundamental freedom that treats all religions equally, we could breathe a little," he said. At the market in Bobigny, a town of 48,000 with a large population of first-and second-generation immigrants from across the world, the reaction to a study and possible ban of the niqab sounded much different. Among the stalls selling fruits, vegetables, cups of mint tea, halal meat and plastic toys, women's clothing ranges from no head covering at all to colourful West African head ties and loosely draped, South Asian-style shawls. "I wear this for modesty, and it's my choice," said a French shopper who gave her name as Amira, and who wore a patterned scarf pinned at the sides and under her chin. "If another woman chooses to wear something else, it's her business and not the business of the state. Everyone should be free to please God as she thinks she should." She said she does not trust the intentions of French politicians who argue that the burka and niqab are an affront to secularism, or, like Mr. Sarkozy, call them symbols of the subjugation of women. "They act as if no Muslim would wear the veil unless she was coerced by a man, and that is not true," Amira said. Many French Internet sites and blogs, including those managed by the mainstream news magazine Nouvel Observateur, are filled with similar sentiments. Setting up a parliamentary commission effectively singles out Muslims for discrimination and suspicion, in the words of a stream of posted comments in the past two weeks. "A ban would be counterproductive and difficult to enforce," said Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, an umbrella group of diverse Muslim organizations. "Are you going to stop burka -wearing women in the street and ask them to take it off?" he asked in an interview in Le Monde. "That would only lead to most of them staying locked up in their homes."