The debate over a proposed French law banning the niqab in public buildings features some unexpected divisions
On a grey Friday afternoon in Paris, Amina and her girlfriends are carrying fake designer handbags and wearing trainers sodden by the rain. Their heads are enveloped in the fur lining of their jacket hoods, and they are chatting vivaciously, swapping numbers on their shiny mobile phones.
But there is one factor that distinguishes this group of young women from a standard cluster of 20-somethings in the capital. Amina, 21, is dressed in a black veil that covers her entire body and most of her face. And, as she speaks, her eyes flash with pride and indignation.
"I choose to wear this. Not every day, just now and again. But when I do wear it, it is entirely of my own volition. No one is forcing me," she says, standing on a busy street corner in the heavily Muslim northern district of Barbès. "If they make us take it off, they'll be taking a part of us. I'd rather die than let them do it."
Amina, who is studying for a degree in Arabic at the university of Paris, is in the eye of a storm that in recent months has swept through France and left resentment in its wake.
Citing concerns about laïcité – secularism – and equality of the sexes, MPs voted last week to push through legislation that would forbid women from wearing the full Islamic veil in official spaces such as hospitals, post offices and buses. Figures from all political parties, feminist groups and even an imam have condemned a piece of clothing they describe as a "walking prison".
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10:34 PM
Moderate Islamist here
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