11 February 2008

MADRID - A debate about the integration of immigrants continued raging in Spain on Friday after the conservative opposition pledged to toughen integration requirements if it wins the 9 March elections.

The main opposition conservative People's Party (PP) was planning to orientate schools towards banning the Islamic headscarf, with the exception of the north African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla, which have large Muslim populations, PP sources said.

The party would also oblige Muslim girls to attend gymnastics classes, Muslim women to allow male doctors to examine them and to take off their headscarves for identification photographs, the daily El Mundo reported.

PP leader Mariano Rajoy earlier said his party would make immigrants seeking to renew their residence permits sign contracts in which they agreed to respect Spanish laws and customs, to learn Spanish and to pay taxes, among other duties.

The idea was inspired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who introduced a similar measure while he was interior minister.

The PP's elicited strong criticism from the governing Socialists, the far left, regionalist parties and immigrants' associations.

An agreement to respect laws was superfluous and it was difficult to define which Spanish customs were to be respected, according to legal experts interviewed by the daily El Pais.

The customs could at least not include bullfighting and football, some commentators quipped.

PP representative Miguel Arias Canete added fuel to the flames by describing immigrants as a "low-quality" work force which mainly contributed to the service sector on Thursday.

Immigrant waiters did not match the Spanish ones of old, Arias Canete complained, also describing Ecuadorian immigrant women as making use of hospital emergency services to have mammograms which would have cost them much more in their home country.

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