Sarkozy: Burka not welcome on French soil

The Islamic burka is "not welcome" in France and should be banned, President Sarkozy announced today.

In comments which were set to infuriate radical Muslim leaders, he said the body covering "is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience".

He added: "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic."

A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right has called on the French parliament to take action against women who are adopting what they called "oppressive" head-to-toe Islamic dress that "breaches individual freedoms".

There are more than five million Muslims in the secular French republic, but everything has been done to prevent them showing off their religion in public. In 2004 France banned the wearing of religious headscarves in state schools.

André Gerin, a Communist MP, led the motion for the latest inquiry, calling the burka and niqab "a moving prison" for women. Some women's groups, including Muslim ones, back the new measures. Housing minister Fadela Amara, a rights campaigner of Algerian background, said that she was alarmed by the number of women "who are being put in this kind of tomb".

But the national Muslim council accused French lawmakers of wasting time on a fringe phenomenon. It is estimated that 100,000 women in France have taken to full costumes with face covering.

Mr Sarkozy's government announced last week that it would seek to set up a parliamentary commission that could propose legislation aimed at barring Muslim women from wearing head-to-toe gowns outside the home.

The issue is highly divisive even within the government. France's junior minister for human rights, Rama Yade, said she was open to a ban if it was aimed at protecting women forced to wear the burka. But immigration minister Eric Besson said a ban would only "create tensions".

US President Barack Obama attacked French and other European laws in a speech in Cairo last week in which he said that America prized freedom of religion, adding: "We are not going to tell people what to wear."