France plans law to 'liberate' women from full-face veil

The French Government will push for a law banning the full-face Islamic veil in order to defend France from ''extremists'', the ruling party's parliamentary leader has said. Jean-Francois Cope, the president of the Union for a Popular Movement, laid out his plans for new legislation in a newspaper article, which appeared just as three ministers were to testify before a parliamentary panel set up to consider whether to ban the full veil.

''The issue is not how many women wear the burqa,'' Mr Cope wrote in Le Figaro. ''There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.''

The new legislation would be enacted after a period of consultation with French Muslims ''so that this measure is understood for what it is: a law of liberation and not a ban'', he wrote (...)