Elaine Ganley: Lifting the veil on isolation danger over burka ban

Protests in Pakistan, al-Qaeda warnings, skittish Muslim tourists: France's plan to do away with burka-style veils is already reverberating far beyond its borders.

A bill to outlaw face veils, aimed at upholding French republican values, is expected to win Senate approval this month. If it passes this key hurdle, French diplomats will face a tough task ensuring the ban doesn't alienate governments, deter devout foreign shoppers loaded with cash, or provoke Islamist terrorists.

It's a complex challenge for a country that works relentlessly to preserve its global diplomatic influence, its cherished secular ideals and its status as the world's top tourist destination.

Ensuring gender equality, woman's dignity and security are the official reasons France wants to outlaw Islamic veils, most often worn as "niqabs" that hide all but the eyes. Authorities insist the global ban - which would include visiting foreigners - is not anti-Muslim.

But that message has failed to convince some governments, be they Western or France's traditional Arab allies, or trickle down to moneyed travellers who swarm Paris's so-called "Golden Triangle", a high-priced shopping district centred around the Champs-Elysees.

"When you're a tourist, you want to go to places you feel you are welcome," said Dalal Saif of Oman, a sultanate bordering Saudi Arabia, during a three-week summer visit to France.

Saif, whose work is tied to the oil industry, spent hours one day with his family selecting perfumes and cosmetics by the bagful at a Champs-Elysees store.

"If they feel unwelcome, France will lose this kind of revenue," he said, adding that such a measure "infringes on (France's] image as custodians, protectors of liberties".

The number of visitors to Paris from the oil-rich Middle East was up nearly 30 per cent in the first half of 2010 compared to last year, according to the Paris Tourism and Congress Office.

"I can see that many families will change destinations because of this," said Saif, standing by his young daughter, black-robed but bare-faced sister, and wife wearing a chartreuse head scarf.

Many Muslim tourists who wear face veils at home shed them for European vacations, instead donning stylish, often brightly-coloured headscarves, sometimes paired with big sunglasses. But that choice doesn't erase a sense that France is offending followers of Islam with its proposed veil ban.

Some of France's closest allies, Britain and the United States, both with large Muslim populations, are among those who publicly disagree with president Nicolas Sarkozy's plan.

Moderate Muslim leaders in France and elsewhere agree that Islam does not require women to cover their faces, but many are uncomfortable with banning the veil.Scores of religious leaders have denounced the measure, and are struggling with what to advise the faithful.

The Saudi government, which has defence and business ties with French companies, is among "silent states" that prefer to say nothing about France's veil bill for diplomatic reasons, said Maila, the Foreign Ministry official.

Opposition is strongest in Pakistan, where there have been demonstrations against the measure. A defence of the French position by Ambassador Daniel Jouanneau was published in nine papers this summer, Maila said.

In Jordan, where full veils are rare, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, said Muslim women should continue to visit France "especially if they have business to attend to". But the group's spokesman, Jamil Abu-Bakr, said: "The French move will cause chaos and we condemn it." He added European countries that impose a ban on the face-covering veil "will harm their interests, friendships and historically cordial neighbourly relations with several Muslim nations".

Beyond such tensions, possible constitutional challenges await an eventual law. But the French are not about to budge. The nation's concept of integration, in which ethnic or religious differences are subsumed by Frenchness, is the ultimate argument for making the face visible.

Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who runs the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, fears that France will isolate itself with the measure and, worse, become a "justifiable target" in the eyes of Islamist extremists. "It's an opportunity for them."