by JAMES BLITZ
More than half of voters in the five biggest European economies believe women should be banned from wearing the burka in public, according to an opinion poll for the Financial Times.
As President Nicolas Sarkozy presses ahead with France’s plans to ban the public wearing of the burka, the FT’s latest Harris poll shows that the move is strongly supported not only in France but also in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.
The poll shows that there is most support for the burka ban in France, where 70 per cent of respondents said they supported plans to forbid the wearing of the garment, which covers the female body from head to toe. Similar sentiments were displayed in Spain and Italy, where 65 per cent and 63 per cent respectively favoured a ban.
The strength of feeling in the UK and Germany may seem particularly surprising. Though Britain has a strong liberal tradition that respects an individual’s right to full expression of religious views, 57 per cent of respondents in the country said they favoured a ban. In Germany, which is also reluctant to clamp down on minority rights, 50 per cent favour a ban.
“This poll shows that the number of people in France opposed to the burka is going up and that is the product of debate on burka and national identity,” said Patrick Weil, an expert on national identity at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. “But the figure is clearly going up in other countries in Europe like the UK as well, and that reflects the growing concern that there is about this issue in some parts of Europe.”
In the US, concerns about the issue are far less strong than in Europe. Just 33 per cent of Americans surveyed by Harris supported a ban, compared with 44 per cent who said they did not.
Financial Times for more