A Muslim woman too orthodox for France
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/18/europe/france.php
When Faiza Silmi applied for French citizenship she was worried that her fluent French was not quite perfect enough or that her Moroccan upbringing would pose a problem."I would never have imagined that they would turn me down because of what I choose to wear," Silmi said, her hazel eyes looking out of the narrow slit in her niqab, an Islamic facial veil that is among three flowing layers of turquoise, blue and black that cover her body from head to toe.
But last month, France's highest administrative court upheld a decision to deny Silmi, 32, citizenship on the ground that her "radical" practice of Islam was incompatible with French values like equality of the sexes.
It was the first time that a French court had judged somebody's capacity to be assimilated into France based on private religious practice, taking laïcité - the country's strict concept of secularism - from the public sphere into the home.
The case has sharpened the focus on the delicate balance between the tradition of Republican secularism and the freedom of religion guaranteed under the French Constitution - and how that balance might be shifting. It comes four years after a law banning religious garb in public schools was reinforced. And it comes only weeks after a court in Lille annulled a marriage on request of a Muslim husband whose wife had lied about being a virgin. (The government subsequently demanded a review of the court decision.)
