France bans burqa but tolerates nudity
The recent move by France to impose a ban on burqa, a cover-all headdress some Muslim women choose to wear, has come in contrast with the country's tolerance of public nudity. The ban came into force on Monday and was followed by immediate arrest of nearly 60 women that defied the ban by walking outside the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, reported a Press TV correspondent from the French capital. A recently-surfaced video, meanwhile, featured a naked male running around the country's streets while trying to cut a figure as a pole vaulter. Kenza Drider, a young Muslim that left the southern city of Avignon for Paris to participate in a television program on the day the ban became law, was among the detainees.
"This law infringes my European rights; I cannot but defend them, that is to say my freedom to come and go and my religious freedom," she said. "This law breaches these rights," said the mother of four.
There are fewer than 2,000 women wearing a full-face veil in France, which is home to five million Muslims -- the largest Muslim community in the EU.