BCC: The former French justice minister, Rachida Dati, has condemned the wearing of the burka, saying that it "does not correspond" to European values.
Ms Dati, the first person of North African descent to serve in the French cabinet, is in the UK to visit the Justice Secretary Jack Straw's Blackburn constituency.
In a rare interview, she told Today programme reporter Zubeida Malik that "it's important to remind what helps citizens live together and have a common destiny and living together and having a common destiny means having principles and values in common.
"And it's true that the burka" - the wearing of which is now the subject of heated debate in France - "does not correspond neither to our values nor to our principles whether French or British and not even European. So it is important to say no to this expression that is not a religious expression."
Ms Dati rejected suggestions that banning the burka and other face veils would make them more popular. "We have to remember that often women who wear the burka are either doing it out of ignorance or others are motivated by an activism linked to the creation of a new identity," she said.
"And to those for whom it represents the expression of an identity, it is important to say that in our countries there can't be any confrontation of identities. There is one single identity based upon common values and principles shared by our countries."
Rachida Dati was a lawyer when she was named as French justice minister by President Sarkozy in 2007. She was the first person of North African origin to hold a top government post in Paris.
Born in 1965 to a Moroccan mason father and an Algerian mother, Ms Dati was one of 12 children raised in humble circumstances. Aged 16, she started working as a carer in a private clinic, looking after her younger sisters and brothers after her mother's death. >>> | Friday, February 19, 2010
