Turkish PM attacks France for ban on full face veil

STRASBOURG: The Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused France of violating religious freedom on Wednesday after Paris began implementing a law banning Muslim women from wearing the full veil in public.

Erdogan said the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe that Turkey is the only Muslim country that had copied the French law on secularism, separation of church and state.

"It is ironic to see that secularism is now under debate in Europe and undermine the freedoms of some,"he said.

"Today in France there is no respect for individual religious freedom,"he said. Based in Strasbourg, Council of Europe human rights observers across the continent.

Conservative government of France banned the veil in public and has held a national debate on secularism of contention that Muslims are told here portrayed as a minority issue rather than a group of most law-abiding citizens French .

With five million Muslim minority is bigger here in Europe, representing about 8 percent of the French population.