French burqa ban has nothing to do with women’s rights

international | gender and sexuality | other press

Thursday July 22, 2010 13:26

by Clara Zetkin

The ban on the wearing of the burqa is wrong. Just as it it is wrong to force women to wear the veil. The French Left have been found wanting. Full story at link.

The fact that only one French MP - a member of the rightwing UMP - voted against the ban on the burqa says it all.
On July 13, the bill prohibiting the “covering of the face in public” received the votes of 335 deputies. The bill does not specify Muslims or women, but everyone knows who the targets are - the less than 2,000 women in France who normally dress in the full-length burqa or niqab. After the law comes into force next year - it has yet to pass through the senate and may face a challenge in the constitutional court - those who continue to cover up will face a €150 fine and/or compulsory citizenship classes. Those who “force” a person to wear such attire could be looking at a €30,000 fine and a one-year jail sentence (the penalties will be even stiffer if a minor is made to cover their face).

So what happened to the left opposition in parliament? The Parti Communiste Français, Parti Socialiste and the Greens abstained - or rather they staged a boycott of the vote. Not because they could not bring themselves to be present when such an appalling attack on an oppressed minority was being adopted, but because they did not want to appear “pro-burqa” by voting against the bill. PCF parliamentary spokesperson Roland Muzeau said that the law had “nothing to do with defending women’s rights” and would “stigmatise Muslims”. But he led his troops out of the chamber all the same.

It is likely the PCF would have voted for the bill if it had been limited to people working in public services or shops - most, after all, voted for the 2004 ban on the wearing of the hijab by Muslim girls in state schools. As it was, one ‘communist’ deputy, the anti-migrant, anti-European Union nationalist, André Gerin, voted with the government. Gerin claims that to wear the burqa is to “renounce the republic”.

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Comments (11 of 11)

Where does it say in the koran that women should wear the niqab

by V for vendetta

Thu Jul 22, 2010 14:21

Where in the koran does it say women have to wear this kind of garment? It only says that women should show modesty in their dress. The niqab is a tool for the oppression and domination of women by men. Have some women come to accept their oppression so thoroughly that they even choose to oppress themselves??

If you really must, you can honour your god and, according to the koran, still dress more or less as you please, just show a little modesty. No need for any woman to ever wear the niqab.

Balaclava

by Ronoc

Thu Jul 22, 2010 16:29

So if they are allowed cover there faces in public, should all people then have the right to sport a Balaclava in public?

Oppressed

by Richard

Thu Jul 22, 2010 16:57

Are not the burqa wearers an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority? Islam is also a form of oppression.

2004 ?

by Fergal - none

Sat Jul 24, 2010 11:45

Are you sure that the 2004 law was specifically aimed at stopping Muslim girls from wearing the hijab in state schools?I thought it was against all "ostentatious" signs of religion including the Jewish skull cap and the Christian crucifix.I have heard stories of French teachers asking students to put away their Christian crosses or to go home!Unthinkable in Mother Ireland
Incredibly only 16 Muslim girls turned up in September ,after the ban,to sate schools!All 16 then got classes at home provided by the state as far as I know.

Articles

by Morrigan

Sun Jul 25, 2010 15:40

http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/tu-te-tromp...liam/
http://liammacuaid.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/banning-the...cism/

Discussion articles on wearing of veil/nijab etc

Female Slavery.

by Ex-Muslim.

Sun Aug 01, 2010 17:04

Forcing women to cover up every piece of their bodies in public has nothing to do with womens' rights either I suppose?

Macho males take off the veils of their female slaves in the bedroom.

Freedom to choose emancipation and dress

Thu Aug 05, 2010 14:00

Peter Manson replies to left and right criticisms of his article above. You may access the critical letters at: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/letters.php?issue_id=828

The full text of Peters response is at the url below.

The publication in last week’s Weekly Worker of three letters, whose authors - Andrew Coates, Robert Wilkinson and Jacob Richter - share the anti-religious intolerance of much of the French left, was useful. It helped to reveal a mindset of what is, at the end of the day, a profoundly anti-democratic viewpoint that can only serve to reinforce divisions amongst the working class.

In response to my article, ‘French burqa ban has nothing to do with women’s rights’ (July 22), Andrew Coates states: “The defence of the burqa is part of a general trend to assert special, privileged protection for religious claims. It is root and branch against any form of equality. The assertion of religious rights, of which the ‘right’ to wear the burqa is just one, should be opposed,not embraced” (Letters, July 29).

In the same edition, ‘official’ communist Robert Wilkinson writes: “La laïcité [secularism] is a struggle against the separatism and privilege of any religion and a recognition that the ‘freedom’ of a few fanatical believers renders immense assistance to the far right in their demonisation of all Muslims.” Comrade Wilkinson does not say which ‘freedoms’ he would like to see ‘derecognised’, but, since the issue under discussion was the French legal ban on the right to wear the burqa and niqab, we can only assume that this is what he is referring to.

They are joined by Jacob Richter, who is the most blunt: “... the public display of religious symbols needs to be curtailed, whether they come in the form of saintly statues or burqas.”

Nude Europeans.

by European.

Fri Aug 06, 2010 21:25

What a load of..........

Nobody in Europe minds women on the San Tropez beach walking around topless in skimpy bikinis.

Swedish beaches are full of nude people.

Irishmen used to race horses along the beaches of County Clare completely nude up to the 19th Century.

Only Muslims seem to have a problem with Nudes.

URL

by CZ

Fri Aug 06, 2010 21:31

Forgot to add the link for Peters response:

Responses

Thu Aug 26, 2010 13:41

Some more correspondence.

Male Slave owner mentality.

by Muslim Woman.

Fri Aug 27, 2010 22:52

Women love their faces.
That is why female face make-up is so popular around the world.

Only slave-driving men force women to cover up their beautiful faces.
Oppression.
Pure and simple.

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French burqa ban has nothing to do with women’s rights

Comments (11 of 11)