French legislators are pondering a ban on Muslim women wearing burkas, like the one worn in this image of a couple near the Eiffel Tower in Paris taken in June. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

French legislators are expected to pull back from plans to pass a law barring Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public, according to the head of the commission looking into the issue.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had made the wearing of Muslim headdresses a political issue in his country this year, and on Thursday repeated his conviction that "France is a country that has no place for the burka."

But commission head Andre Gerin told Europe 1 radio on Friday the panel will simply propose recommendations, rather than a law.

The wearing of burkas — all-concealing traditional dresses, with built-in mesh covering the eyes — has been a controversial issue in France, with Sarkozy calling them "a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement."

The president's comments have drawn criticism in the Muslim world and from community leaders among the five million Muslims in France who worry the law would stigmatize their faith. French police intelligence agencies have also issued reports saying the use of burkas was a "marginal phenomenon," one in use by fewer than 400 women in the country.

A commission of 32 legislators from all four major political parties in the country's National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, was expected to deliver its report on the issue by the end of the year.

Gerin said the report will likely propose a ban on burkas in hospitals and other public services, but did not elaborate on how this would be accomplished.

Burkas have also been controversial in other parts of the world as well, including in Egypt, where the garb is viewed as cultural and not religious in nature. Egypt put in place a ban on nurses wearing full veil in 2008, but it has not been enforced.

The niqab, a face-veil with a thin opening for the eyes, has been controversial in Canada as well, with the federal Conservatives introducing a bill in 2007 that would have forced veiled women to show their faces when voting.

But earlier this year Steven Fletcher, minister of state for democratic reform, said the Canadian government had no plans to go forward with the legislation because of other priorities.