Prime Minister Francois Fillon urged France's Muslims on Monday to reject full face veils as a sectarian caricature of Islam, a week before parliament debates a law banning burqas and niqabs in public.
Inaugurating a mosque in a northwestern Paris suburb, he said French Muslims should combat a tiny radical minority using face veils as a way to combat the integration of a tolerant Islam that respects the separation of church and state.
"The Islam of France, the Islam you practice daily, has nothing to do with this caricature that dims the lights of your faith," Fillon, the most senior French politician to inaugurate a mosque in decades, said to applause from the crowd. [Reuters] Read more
