JUST LAST week, his wife made headlines after she was fined by police for driving while wearing her Islamic veil. Now, Liès Hebbadj, an Algerian-born butcher from Nantes, France, faces being stripped of his French passport for allegedly practising polygamy.
The couple’s story has caused a major political row in France, with a minister yesterday suggesting he may tighten polygamy laws and opposition figures accusing the government of exploiting the case for political gain.
It emerged last Friday that Mr Hebbadj’s wife, a 31-year-old French woman who converted to Islam, was recently fined €22 by traffic police in Nantes because her niqab – a face-covering veil with a slit for the eyes – obstructed her field of vision. Coming two days after President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered his government to draft a law to ban such veils in all public places, the news grabbed national attention. The woman’s lawyer announced that he would challenge the fine, saying it breached his client’s rights.
With the government coming in for criticism, however, interior minister Brice Hortefeux then released a memo he had written to Eric Besson, the immigration minister, saying the woman’s husband – Liès Hebbadj (35) – appeared to have several wives and suggesting that he lose his French citizenship.
The government alleged that Mr Hebbadj had four wives, each of whom it believes has been fraudulently claiming welfare benefits as lone parents.
Mr Hebbadj, who became a citizen when he married a French woman in 1999, denies having more than one wife and says other women who gave birth to his children – the government says he is the father of 12 – were mistresses.
“If one can be stripped of one’s French nationality for having mistresses, then many Frenchmen could lose theirs,” he said.
Although polygamy is banned in France, the law allows the government to revoke citizenship only in specific circumstances, such as a terrorist attack on the country.
However, it is possible to “lose” one’s citizenship if it can be proven it was granted on the basis of false information, including undeclared civil marriages.
The government also raised the possibility of tightening polygamy law. “If the French people consider that cheating in these conditions shouldn’t be allowed, then . . . we could well imagine a change to the law,” Mr Besson told RTL radio yesterday.
Leading Socialist Party politicians, including mayor of Nantes Jean-Marc Ayrault, suggested that by now releasing information that it apparently had had for some time, the government was using the case for political gain at a sensitive moment in the debate over the ban on the full veil.
However, Mr Hortefeux’s actions were widely praised within the UMP bloc, which has sought to link the niqab to extremism and subjugation of women. The leader of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, also praised the minister’s move and attacked the principle of dual citizenship.
The government’s draft law to ban face-covering veils in public, which will be tabled next month, is widely expected to be challenged in the courts.