Muslim Veil Contrasts

As France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a ban on burka-like Islamic veils this week, a survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project found previously that while a majority of Europeans back such a ban most Americans would (currently) reject such a ban in their nation.

Majorities in Germany (71 percent), Britain (62 percent) and Spain (59 percent) noted that they, too, would support a burqa ban in their own countries.

But in the United States, the opposite was true, with two-thirds of Americans saying they were against a ban on full veils in public.

Opinions about banning Muslim women from wearing a full veil did not vary along gender lines in any of the five countries where the question was asked.

Pew asked 1,002 people in the United States, 750 each in Britain, France and Germany and 755 in Spain about how they felt about a burqa ban, as part of its Global Attitudes Survey.

The French ban on face-covering veils will move in September to the Senate, where it also is likely to pass.  France's constitutional council will then scrutinize it. Some legal scholars believe that there is a chance the ban could be deemed unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the main body representing French Muslims says face-covering veils are not required by Islam and not suitable in France, but it worries that the law will stigmatize Muslims in general.

France has Europe's largest Muslim population, estimated to be about five million of the country's 64 million people. While ordinary headscarves are common, only about 1,900 women in France are believed to wear face-covering veils. Champions of the bill say the veils oppress women.

With the proposed ban, the government also is seeking to insist that integration is the only path for immigrant minorities. But at what cost? Is freedom of religion the issue here or something else?

France has had difficulty integrating generations of immigrants and their children, since at least 2005, when weeks of rioting by (mostly minority) youths in troubled neighborhoods revealed the soft underbelly of religious and ethnic division.