Air France rules women can wear burqas on flights

Muslims passengers on Air France flights will not be asked to remove their burqa following a national ban on full-face veils, according to an internal memo from the carrier’s legal department.

Muslim women wearing face veils can be ordered to remove the garment in French airports but are free to put it back on during the flight, the Daily Mail newspaper reported on Wednesday.

“Flight crews on board planes cannot ask a person to uncover their face if they are hiding it,” the newspaper said, quoting an internal memo to staff from Air France's legal department.

“The law can only be enforced by police and other public officials on the ground.”

France became the first European country to prohibit the wearing of the full veil in public places when it introduced the ban on April 11. The country’s President Nicolas Sarkozy last year labelled it “a sign of servitude” and said it was not welcome in France, which is home to about five million Muslims.

Offenders are fined €150 ($216) and ordered to attend citizenship classes. Repeat offenders who refuse to pay up can be sent to prison. Similar laws have since been passed in Belgium and the Netherlands.

France also outlawed praying in the street in September, after a lack of prayer space in big cities forced Muslims to lay their prayer mats on the streets.

The burqa ban has prompted several Muslim women to flout the law and wear face veils in public. A French court in September fined two women, the first time a judge has imposed punishment under the new law.

One of the women said she would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the ban. “[This] violates European laws. For us the question isn't the amount of the fine but the principle. We can't accept that women are sentenced because they are freely expressing their religious beliefs," Hind Ahmas told reporters outside the court.

“We are going to launch the necessary appeals to bring this before the European Court and obtain the cancellation of this law, which is in any case an illegal law” she said.