France defends full-face veil ban at European human rights court

The European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday began examining France's prohibition of full-face veils in public, directly challenging the secular foundations of the French nation-state.

The Strasbourg-based court began studying the contentious issue on the same day that an appeals court in Paris upheld the right of a nursery to fire a female employee, Fatima Afif, who insisted on wearing an Islamic headscarf at work. Critics say the so-called burqa ban is a breach of religious freedom.

France defended its ban as a democratic law backed by "a strong conviction among the French public."

"Wearing the full veil not only makes it difficult to identify a person, it makes her indistinguishable from other full-veil-wearers and effectively erases the woman who wears it," said French government lawyer Edwige Belliard. Citizens are free to wear other clothes or symbols in public that indicate their religious beliefs, she added.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said recently that the ban on burqas was "a law against practices that have nothing to do with our traditions and our values." Under the French law, approved in 2010 and implemented the following year, women wearing full-face veils in public spaces can be fined up to $200.

Ramby de Mello, a British lawyer representing the unnamed French Muslim who challenged the full-face veil ban at the European Court of Human Rights, said the law violated his client's religious, free speech and privacy rights and made her feel "like a prisoner in her own country." The veil was "as much part of her identity as our DNA is of ours," he argued.

In written evidence, his plaintiff testified that she is not constrained to wear the burqa by any man, and she is willing to remove it whenever required for security reasons — directly addressing the French authorities' two main arguments in favor of the ban.

A ruling from the European court is not expected for several months.

This was the first time the Strasbourg court has considered the legality of the full-face veil in public. Belgium and the Swiss canton of Ticino have also banned it, and politicians in Italy and the Netherlands have proposed a similar law. 

The privately-run Baby Loup daycare center, which cares for infants of dozens of nationalities, fired Afif in 2008 after she began wearing a headscarf to work despite an internal dress code banning religious wear.

"Today a republican institution has reaffirmed the strength of the principle of secularism," Richard Malka, a lawyer for the Baby Loup daycare center, said following the decision.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), a Muslim rights group, denounced the headscarf ruling as "a veritable judicial scandal" that meant "nobody is protected against being judged by one's religious, ethnic or social origin."

The two cases — one pan-European lawsuit against full-face veils and the other against Afif — have divided French public opinion for years, with the bans enjoying wide support in public opinion but denounced by many Muslims as discriminatory.

France has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, estimated at 5 million, and some of the continent's most restrictive laws about expressions of faith in public.

Wire services