French court lifts travel ban on Muslim woman

A French Muslim won a court order on Tuesday lifting a travel ban she says was imposed due to her Salafist beliefs.
The 19-year-old, who was raised Catholic and converted to Islam two years ago, said she had wanted to go to the Middle East to study but her mother alerted the authorities, suspecting her daughter had fallen into the hands of militants.
The travel ban on the young woman, who has asked French media not to use her name, was imposed on anti-terrorism grounds. The government feared she might try to join militant groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.
“I am a Salafist, but I am not Daesh,” the teenager told an administrative court two weeks ago. “There is a big difference.”
The case highlights France’s struggle to deal with many of its 5 million Muslims, the largest such population in western Europe, especially since a wave of deadly attacks inspired by Daesh and involving militants born on French soil.
Bans on burkinis, a full-length swimsuit designed for modest Muslim women, followed a new set of attacks this summer, the most deadly of which took place in the beachside resort of Nice.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended the bans, which were later ruled unconstitutional.
National identity, and especially the relationship between a fiercely secularist tradition and Muslims who display their faith, is a hotly debated issue ahead of April’s presidential election, in which polls show the far-right anti-immigration National Front performing strongly.
Tuesday’s court ruling said the young woman was a rigorous Muslim, but that was not enough to prove she supported terrorism.
France is now in its eleventh month under emergency law, imposed after the November 2015 attack on Paris by Daesh gunmen and suicide bombers and then extended after the Nice killings last July, just as it was about to be lifted.

Source: Arab News