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 March 9 elections. The main opposition conservative People's Party (PP) was planning to ban the use of the Islamic headscarf at most schools, according to the daily El Mundo, whose views are often close to the PP.
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 said.
The headscarf would be prohibited at schools unless specially authorized by them, a case which would be put in practice in Spain's north African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla, which have large Muslim populations.
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 plans received 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.
Immigrant waiters did not match the Spanish ones of old, Arias Canete said, 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.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Thursday apologized to immigrant women for the comment, describing the PP's views as "discriminatory, stale" and unconstitutional.
The PP was trying to gain support among the working class living alongside immigrants in low-income neighbourhoods, which has traditionally voted for the Socialists, according to El Pais.
The Socialists and the PP are running practically neck-to-neck in polls.
Spain has about 5 million immigrants, more than twice as many as four years ago. They make up around 11 per cent of the population and include more than 1 million Muslims.
There have been relatively few signs of hostility against foreigners even after the 2004 Islamist train bombings, which killed 191 people in Madrid, said Kamal Rahmouni, president of the Moroccan immigrants' association Atime.
