France is moving towards outlawing full Islamic veils in certain public buildings, stopping short of a broader ban that could violate the right to religious freedom, Le Figaro newspaper reported on Wednesday.

A French parliamentary inquiry into the all-covering niqab and burqa, which President Nicolas Sarkoz has described as unwelcome in France, is due to publish its recommendations next month and a compromise looks likely.
 

"Permanently masking one's face in public spaces is not an expression of individual liberty," Jean-Francois Cope, the parliamentary party leader of Sarkozy's UMP party, said in an opinion piece in newspaper Le Figaro.
 

"It's a negation of oneself, a negation of others, a negation of social life," he said, but conceded that a complete ban faced certain legal obstacles.
 

Le Figaro quoted advisers as saying such a ban could be challenged before the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that it hurt religious freedom.
 

Instead, the government will seek to banish the garments from public buildings such as town halls and police headquarters, where it can cite security concerns, it said.
 

Universities, streets and public transport would not be touched by the ban, which in any case would affect only a small group of people -- the number of women in France who wear the niqab or the burqa is estimated at a few hundred.

Mixed reception
Earlier this year, France's proposal to make full veils illegal sparked an outcry from some and applause from others.
 

"Everyone has the right to wear whatever they want to," a French woman of Moroccan descent named only as Kenza said in an interview with BFM television on Wednesday.
 

Wearing a black niqab that left only her eyes exposed, she said she had taken on the full veil 10 years ago as part of her Muslim faith, and had felt an increase in insults and verbal attacks since public debate over the ban boiled up this summer.
 

The issue has fed into a European spat over visible Islamic symbols such as minarets, which Switzerland has banned, as well as a French government campaign to discuss national identity.

National identity
The national identity debate has spiralled into public brawls at town hall meetings and vitriolic comments in government-sponsored Internet forums on Islam's role in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim community.
 

In his opinion piece, Cope tried to separate the possible burqa ban from the ill-fated national identity project, saying it was not a question of immigration or religion.
 

"Our principles are at stake: extremists are testing the Republic by encouraging a practice that they know to be against the essential principles of our country," he wrote.
 

Source: Reuters