Barcelona plans to be the first large city in Spain to ban the use of the full-face Islamic veil in public buildings, its mayor announced Monday. The French government decided Wednesday to impose a $185 fine on women who wear a full-face Islamic veil in public, pushing ahead with a controversial ban despite signs of tension between France’s Muslims and the Christian-tradition majority. 
The French parliament unanimously approved a resolution that would declare the full facial veil known as a burqa as an affront to French values, paving the way for a full-fledged ban on the garment worn by a small minority of French Muslim women. 
Italian police fined a woman $665 for wearing an Islamic face veil, the first punishment of its kind in Italy but the latest in a wave of sanctions against the niqab in Europe. 
A Muslim butcher who could be stripped of his French passport over allegations of polygamy hit back on Monday, insisting that he had not broken the law. The case of a French Muslim woman fined for driving while wearing a full-face veil — a garment the government wants to ban in public — raised a furore Friday over human rights and led a minister to challenge her husband’s status in France. Anxieties that visible signs of Islam erode national identity are combining with complaints that immigrants are stealing jobs amid the worst economic slump in decades to deepen a sense of unease in many European countries, small and large alike, over the role of Muslims in society. 
The latest round in the battle of the burqa kicks off Thursday in Belgium, which could become the first country in Europe to ban face coverings worn by observant Muslim women. The French government is drawing up a law to ban Muslim women from wearing a full-face veil in public, despite advice that it could be illegal. 
There have been demonstrations by women students in Cairo after a leading cleric backed moves to ban the wearing of full women’s veils, known as the niqab, in classrooms or dormitories. The BBC’s Christian Fraser has been hearing both sides of the argument.