The case of a French Muslim woman fined for driving while wearing a full-face veil — a garment the government wants to ban in public — raised a furore on Friday over human rights and led a minister to challenge her husband’s status in France.
A lawyer for the 31-year-old woman accused police in the western city of Nantes of violating her human rights when they stopped and fined her 22 euros (US$29) on the grounds that her niqab — an Islamic veil with a slit for the eyes — restricted her view so she could not drive safely.
The woman who called herself her Anne — not her real name — told journalists on Friday about her exchange with the police officer during the incident on April 2.
“’I don’t know how it’s done in your country but in our country we don’t drive like that,’” she claimed the police officer said, as she told her story standing next to her lawyer outside the El Kaouthar grocery story in Nantes. “I said to him: ‘Your country is also my country, because I am French.’”
She said she then gave the officer her papers and lifted her veil so he could check her identification, as he issued the fine.
Lawyer Jean-Michel Pollono said that the fine was “not justified on road safety grounds and constitutes a breach of human and women’s rights.”
He said his client could “move freely” and “her field of vision was in no way obstructed.” He added that “the field of vision of a motorcycle rider wearing a helmet is more restricted.”
The dress of Muslim women took center stage in French politics on Wednesday when French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government said it would push ahead with a ban on wearing a full-face veil in public, despite a warning from state judicial experts that such a law could be unconstitutional.
The Nantes incident took on another political dimension when France’s interior minister, Brice Hortefeux, wrote to ask his colleague Eric Besson in immigration to look into the woman’s husband, who he alleged may belong to a radical group and may be a polygamist with four wives and 12 children.
Hortefeux said the husband was born in Algeria and acquired French nationality by marrying the woman in 1999.
“I would appreciate your looking into these matters which, if the facts are confirmed, could lead to the individual losing his French nationality,” Hortefeux wrote.
The ban on the Muslim full-face veil has strong support in parliament and Sarkozy’s government is determined to press on with a law, which it says would affect only around 2,000 Muslim French women who currently cover their faces.
Pollono said he had complained formally to the state prosecutor. “The ball is clearly in the authorities’ court,” he said. “Currently no law forbids the wearing of the niqab.”
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