WHEN the French voted last year to ban the niqab, or face-covering Islamic veil, the hard part was always going to be applying the law. Sure enough, the scenes captured by television cameras yesterday, as the law came into effect, of two veiled women being arrested by the police outside Notre Dame cathedral were dramatic.

Yet the women were detained not for wearing the niqab, but for carrying out an unauthorised demonstration; they were later released without being fined the €150 ($217) that the new law imposes. With such intense media scrutiny on the day the law came into effect, French police may have wanted to tread carefully. But the incident underlines the sensitivities in France surrounding any new rules that appear to target Muslims.

Very few women in France wear the niqab (which the French often call the burqa). Intelligence estimates put the number at no more than 2,000, out of a total Muslim population of some 5m. Kenza Drider, one of the women arrested yesterday, had taken a train from Avignon to Paris specifically to make a point outside Notre Dame.

But mayors in some immigrant-heavy towns say that the numbers have risen over the years, particularly among young French-born women who seem to have a mix of religious and political motivations. Some see the hand of hardline Islamist groups, which work through local bookshops and mosques to encourage the spread of the niqab. Many of the women who adopt the garment as teenagers come from families of north African origin, where there is no tradition of the niqab.

This is why support for a ban came from across the political spectrum. Only one deputy in the National Assembly voted against it last year. The ban was widely seen not as a clampdown on religious freedom but a means of reinforcing France's strict tradition of keeping religion out of public life. (The law itself makes no specific mention of Islam but forbids the covering of the face in public places on public-security grounds.) Anything between 57% and 74% of the French, according to various polls, backed the ban. The strongest voices of disapproval came from outside France.

Since the law was passed, however, Mr Sarkozy's popularity has sunk to record lows and he has come under pressure from a revived far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen. Mr Sarkozy faces a tough presidential election next year, and several polls suggest that Ms Le Pen might even beat him into the second-round run-off.

Partly as a result, he has been talking tough, again, about immigration and Islam. Last week his UMP party staged a controversial debate on laïcité, or secularism, which turned out to be all about Islam. Even French Muslims who have no time for the niqab-wearing fringe sense that Islam is being exploited for political ends.

Such is the tense atmosphere that even moderate voices in favour of the ban seem to have gone quiet, perhaps for fear of further stirring anti-Islam sentiment. Fadela Amara, a Muslim ex-minister in Nicolas Sarkozy's first government, once called the burqa a “prison”; now she seems to be silent. Rama Yade, another of the president's ex-ministers and of Senegalese origin, once said she considered the niqab an infringement of women's rights; last week she quit the UMP, blaiming its divisive attitude on identity matters.

The French may be trying to ban religion from public life, but, with little more than a year before they go to the polls, there are no signs that it is about to disappear from political life.

Video: three views on the veil (from September 2009)



