Iraqi Shiite clerics called for a boycott of French products in protest at France's move to ban Islamic headscarves and other religious insignia from schools.
"I suggest that a fatwa (religious edict) be issued by (Shiite religious scholars in the Iraqi holy city of) Najaf, (the Iranian Shiite religious center of) Qom and al-Azhar (the Sunni Muslims' highest religious authority) ordering a boycott of French products," firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said.
"If we cannot reach such a decision, we should at least threaten to do it," he told worshippers during his weekly sermon in Kufa near Najaf.
Silence would encourage other countries, such as Germany, to follow in France's footsteps, Sadr warned.
A similar call was made by a Shiite cleric in Baghdad.
"We condemn the French government's decision prohibiting the Islamic veil and we demand the liberty that France says it embodies," Sayyed Amer al-Husseini told some 10,000 worshippers in the Shiite-populated Sadr City district.
"We encourage a boycott of French products and call on Muslims in France to continue wearing the veil," he said in a sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers.
In the Sunni northern city of Mosul, hundreds of women marched Friday evening to protest at the French move, an AFP correspondent reported.
"Mosul's women denounce the French decision to ban the veil," "This decision violates freedom," read some of the banners raised by the protesters, who rallied at the behest of Islamist groups.
After months of heated debate, a committee of French experts last week recommended banning from state schools "conspicuous" religious insignia -- including the hijab, the Jewish kippa or skullcap and large crucifixes.
French President Jacques Chirac has come out in favor of the ban, which he wants written into law by the start of the next academic year.