French legislators are holding their first meetings to discuss burqas and other face-covering Muslim veils,amid calls for an eventual ban. All four major political parties in the National Assembly,the lower house of parliament,are represented on the 32-member group opening discussions Wednesday. The head of the governing conservative party UMP is quoted in Le Parisien newspaper as suggesting that there be a ban on burqas,but not a "hasty" one. Jean-Francois Cope says there should be six months to a year to explain the ban to the public before it is enforced. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a speech last month that the face-concealing,body-length veils debase women and that they would not be tolerated in France.
