niqab

A 24-year-old French woman had claimed the 2010 ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression.

There was an outcry in France when an appeal court sided with a woman who was fired by a private crèche for wearing a headscarf at work. Interior minister Manuel Valls says he now favours a new law to extend the ban on wearing religious symbols, while opponents argue that new measures simply risk stigmatising French Muslims still further. As Carine Fouteau reports, it looks as if the government has come on the side of the interior minister and is preparing new legislation.

Two French Muslim women have become the first to be convicted under a law banning the wearing of the full-face veil in France.