Sarkozy reiterates determination to ban burqa ban in France

PARIS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that he is determined to ban the use of the burqa, the head-to-toe veil worn by some Muslim women, in secular France. "France is a country where there is no place for the burqa, where there is no place for the subservience of women,” The Telegraph quoted him, as saying in a speech on French national identity.

France, home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, has set up a special panel of 32 lawmakers to consider whether a law should be enacted to bar Muslim women from wearing the full veil.

The country has had a long-running debate on how far it is willing to go to accommodate Islam without undermining the tradition of separating church and state, enshrined in a flagship 1905 law.

In 2004, it passed a law banning headscarves or any other "conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools to defend secularism (...)