A French Muslim threatened by the government with being stripped of his passport for practicing polygamy today said he had only one wife but several mistresses.
The case of Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born butcher who became a citizen when he married a French woman in 1999, has flared into a major political row with opposition parties accusing the government of exploiting the situation.
The story came to light on Friday, when Mr Hebbadj's wife, Anne, complained she had been fined for driving while wearing an Islamic veil, which police said was dangerous.
The government, only days after announcing plans to ban the full veil from the streets of France, said Mr Hebbadj appeared to have several wives and suggested that he lose his French nationality.
Minister for the interior Brice Hortefeux asked the minister for integration to look into revoking Mr Hebbadj's French nationality as information he possessed showed the man was a polygamist married to four women with 12 children.
But Mr Hebbadj denied having more than one wife, saying other women he has had children with were his lovers.
"If one can be stripped of one's French nationality for having mistresses, then many French could lose theirs," he said.
A person can see their French passport taken away if they acquired it through fraud - if, for instance, Mr Hebbadj hid an existing marriage when he married Anne.
Mistresses, however, are hardly unusual in France, where former president Francois Mitterrand maintained a hidden, second family for years.
The French government has said it has information that Mr Hebbadj is married to four women with 12 children and accuses them of fraudulently claiming single parent benefits.
"If the French consider that fraudulent polygamy and benefit claims shouldn't be allowed, then ... we could well imagine a change to the law," Immigration Minister Eric Besson told RTL radio today suggesting a tightening of legislation.
Frederic Lefebvre, a spokesman for the ruling UMP party, accused Mr Hebbadj of being "someone whom we can well suspect of practicing polygamy, which is against the principles of our society, for financial aims".
Last week, French president Nicolas Sarkozy backed a strict public ban of veils such as the burqa or niqab, a legal gamble given constitutional guarantees on freedom of religion.
Defending the burqa ban and still smarting from a beating in last month's regional elections, Mr Sarkozy has revived a strident tone popular with many voters of his centre-right coalition.
"If the constitutional court rejects a law that defends the dignity of women, we need to question that court and the judges," the Journal du Dimanche newspaper quoted him as saying.
Reuters