Paris: Kenza Drider's posters for the French presidential race are ready to go, months before the official campaign begins. There she is, the "freedom candidate," pictured standing in front of a line of police — a forbidden veil hiding her face.
Drider declared her longshot candidacy yesterday, the same day that a French court fined two women who refuse to remove their veils.
All three are among a group of women mounting an attack on the law that has banned the garments from the streets of France since April, and prompted similar moves in other European countries.
They are bent on proving that the ban contravenes fundamental rights and that women who hide their faces stand for freedom, not submission.
"When a woman wants to maintain her freedom, she must be bold," Drider said in an interview.
President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly disagrees, and says the veil imprisons women. Polls show that most French people support the ban, which authorities estimate affects fewer than 2,000 women who wore the veil before the ban.
Drider declared her candidacy yesterday in Meaux, the city east of Paris run by top conservative lawmaker and Sarkozy ally Jean-Francois Cope, who championed the ban.
Stigma
"I have the ambition today to serve all women who are the object of stigmatization or social, economic or political discrimination," she said. "It is important that we show that we are here, we are French citizens and that we, as well, can bring solutions to French citizens."
Two other women arrested wearing veils in Meaux — while trying to deliver a birthday cake to Cope — were fined in court yesterday, one €120 (Dh612), the other €80.
They want to push their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
"We cannot accept that women be punished because they are openly practising their religious convictions. We are demanding the application of European rights," said one of those convicted, Hind Ahmas.
With Islam the second religion in France and numbers of faithful growing, there are worries that veiled Muslim women could compromise the nation's secular foundations and undermine gender equality and women's dignity. Lawmakers banned Muslim headscarves in classrooms in 2004.
Few Muslim women in France cover their faces. Most who veil themselves wear the "niqab". The law also affects the burqa.
Belgium passed a similar face veil ban that took effect in July, and the Netherlands announced last Friday it has drawn up legislation to outlaw Muslim face veils. A draft law has been approved in Italy.
Politics
In France, the veil ban was also seen as a political manoeuvre by the unpopular Sarkozy's conservative UMP party, which Cope chairs, to entice deeply conservative and far-right voters.
Flouting the French measure outlawing face veils in all public places can lead to a fine of €150 and, in some cases, citizenship classes.
However, thus far there have been few legal consequences.
According to the Interior Ministry, 146 women have been given citations by police but only a handful have reportedly been forced to take the next step — appear before a judge for a possible fine. The Justice Ministry says figures are not yet available.
"I tried to understand this law and what I understood is that this is a law which puts us under house arrest," Drider said, referring to women who choose to stay home rather than remove their face veils, or risk arrest.
What the law has done, she says, is give citizens the right to insult veiled women.