French Muslim jailed for attacking gynecologist

PARIS, Jan 25 (Reuters) A French Muslim who attacked a male gynecologist for examining his wife just after she had given birth, saying it was against Islam, has been jailed for six months by a Paris court.

Fouad ben Moussa burst into the delivery room at a Paris hospital last November and shoved, slapped and insulted Dr Jean-Francois Oury as he examined the woman after a complicated birth, the prosecution said in court yesterday.

Police had to intervene to remove him.

Ben Moussa, a 23-year-old truck driver, apologised for the attack and said he had requested a female doctor. French state hospitals comply with such requests when staffing permits but say patients must accept treatment from the doctors on duty.

''This is a public and secular place,'' prosecution lawyer Georges Holleaux said of the state hospital where the attack occurred. ''This is not the place where one can invoke religion to get different treatment.'' French media have reported cases in recent years of Muslim men barring male doctors from treating their wives, sometimes resorting to violence, but legal cases against them are rare.

France's five million Muslims make up eight per cent of the French population, Europe's largest Islamic minority.

REUTERS MS PM1629