Excerpt:
President Nicolas Sarkozy has reiterated his belief that the burqa, the head-to-toe veil worn by some Muslim women, has no place in secular France.
"France is a country where there is no place for the burqa, where there is no place for the subservience of women," he said in a speech on French national identity.
France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority, has set up a special panel of 32 lawmakers to consider whether a law should be enacted to bar Muslim women from wearing the full veil.