Germany is being urged to ban the burqa

We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Sign up fornow and never miss the top politics stories again.

The conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), which is the sister party in the state to the ruling CDU of Chancellor Angela Merkel, is pressing Berlin to support the measure.

Ilse Aigner, finance minister in Bavaria, said: “The law on a burqa ban should be quickly passed by the government.

“It is first and foremost about showing one’s face. It’s about living together as a society and seeing one another. It doesn’t fit to our society to hide oneself, and it contradicts our idea of sexual equality.”