Because a woman in the front row wearing a niqab, the singer at the Paris Opera did not want to sing. In France, wearing a full-body veil is forbidden by law. The tourist from the Gulf region was expelled from the theater.

A vollverschleierte spectator is sent during a screening of “La Traviata” from the Paris Opera. The woman was sitting in the front row directly behind the conductor and was veiled up to the eyes, the deputy director of the opera at the Bastille, Jean-Philippe Thiellay, the AFP news agency said. Some choir members have declared that they will not sing, as long as the woman with the niqab sit there.

In France, the full-face veil is banned in public since 2011. The European Court of Human Rights had declared the ban in July for lawful: it does not infringe the protection of private life and not against freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

Thiellay says that he had been notified during the second act of the opera about the veiled woman in the front row. During the break we’ve asked them to remove the veil or to go, whereupon her companion had left her with the Opera House. In the pair, it was, according to media reports about tourists from the Gulf region.

The incident occurred in early October. The French Ministry of Culture declared now, it is working on a corresponding message to the theater, museums and other public institutions: This would ensure that all visitors and spectators abide by the law.

[adrotate group=”14″]