Lost-in-France.com

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France is considering placing a ban on the burqa and other clothing that it considers as degrading to women.

The burqa or full veil is an all enveloping outer garment often worn by Muslim women that covers the body from head to toe and is usually only removed when the women is in her own home.

On Wednesday this week 58 ministers met and signed a proposal asking the government to take a closer look at the wearing of the burqa in France saying that the veils constituted "a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory". Ministers fear that many women are forced to wear the clothing against their will and that people in France should be allowed to wear what they wanted free from fear.

There are an estimated 5 million Muslims living in France and France's staunch secular laws already caused a stir with some Muslims when in 2004 the government banned the wearing of religious headscarves in schools.

Mohammed Moussaoui head of the Muslim council claimed that the proposed legislation was "a way of stigmatising Islam". Meanwhile Fadela Amara a human rights campaigner and also a housing minister said that she found it very alarming that large numbers of women "are being put in this kind of tomb, we must do everything to stop burqas from spreading."



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