'France veil ban will apply to Muslim tourists too'

Muslim tourists in France will be forbidden to wear the full-face veil along with French residents under the government's plan to ban the garment in public places, a minister said yesterday.

"When you arrive in France, you respect the laws in force.... Everyone will have to respect the laws in France. That's how it is," Nadine Morano, a junior minister for families, said on the radio station France Info.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to France each year from the Middle East, according to estimates from the tourism ministry, and veiled women are a common sight in the luxury stores on Paris shopping boulevards.

Ms Morano said women breaching the ban would be fined but would not be unveiled "on the spot".

Ms Morano said the planned ban was in line with France's secular principles but also aimed to give "a message at international level" and would apply equally to visitors from abroad.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government announced Wednesday it will ban the wearing in public of the full-face veil worn by some Muslim women, despite a warning from experts that such a law could be unconstitutional.

Government spokesman Luc Chatel said a bill would be presented to ministers in May and would seek to ban the niqab and the burqa from streets, shops and markets and not just from public buildings.

Last month, the State Council - France's top administrative authority - warned against a full ban on the veil, suggesting instead an order that women uncover their faces for security checks or meetings with officials.

The government says only around 2,000 Muslim French women currently cover their faces, but the niqab, which covers the face apart from the eyes, is widely worn on the Arabian peninsular and in the Gulf states.

France and Belgium will have expected opposition to the bans from political and religious figures in mainly-Muslim countries, but reaction from Western states with their own Muslim minorities is less predictable as many voters feel large Muslim immigrant populations are not integrating. Meanwhile Iran was quick to add the proposed laws to its charge sheet against the Western nations pressuring it on its nuclear programme.

"French officials dare to make declarations about the internal affairs of other nations, while at the same time they don't respect the rights of their own citizens," declared foreign ministry spoke-sman Ramin Mehmanparast.

Iran accused France of ignoring "the rights of Muslims, who are not allowed to respect religious rules, notably in terms of wearing the veil."

In June last year, US President Barack Obama fiercely criticised European moves to ban the veil in a major speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

"It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear," he declared, to applause.

"We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism," he added, in a thinly veiled dig at France's claim to be taking the measure in order to protect the dignity of women.

Swiss voters have already voted in a referendum to ban the construction of new mosque minarets, and in Austria the minister for families Christine Marek said she was in favour of banning the full face veil in some circumstances.