A top Paris police official says 59 people were detained while trying to protest at Place de la Nation in eastern Paris, and two others were detained while travelling there from Britain and Belgium.
Nicolas Lerner, an official with the city's police chief, said the arrests Saturday came after demonstrators refused to comply with the ban. He said it was ordered yesterday because organisers' call for the protest was "clearly an incitation to violence and racial hatred" and that counter-demonstrations had been planned raising the prospect of public disorder.
France is set to enact a ban of face-covering Muslim veils on Monday.
(Published 10 April 2011, 03:27 IST)
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