Paris police have arrested two veiled women and several other people protesting in front of Notre Dame cathedral against France's new ban on wearing full-face niqab veils in public.
An Agence France-Presse journalist at the scene said the arrests came after police moved in to break up the protest which had not been authorised.
"Today was not about arresting people because of wearing the veil. It was for not having respected the requirement to declare a demonstration," said police spokesman Alexis Marsan.
Two women in niqabs, a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf that does not cover the face and a demonstration organiser were arrested, Marsan said.
In another protest, Rachid Nekkaz from the Don't Touch My Constitution activist group and "a female friend wearing the niqab" were arrested by police in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy's Elysee Palace, he said.
"We wanted to be fined for wearing the niqab, but the police didn't want to issue a fine," Nekkaz said by telephone.
On Saturday police arrested 59 people, including 19 veiled women, who turned up for a banned protest in Paris against the new law, the first of its kind to be enforced in Europe.
France - home to Europe's biggest Muslim population - is the first European country to risk stirring social tensions by putting one into practice a ban on the burqa and the niqab.
The law comes into effect at an already fraught moment in relations between the state and France's Muslim minority, with President Nicolas Sarkozy accused of stigmatising Islam to win back votes from a resurgent far right.
French officials estimate that only about 2000 women, from a total Muslim population estimated at between four and six million,wear the full-face veils that are traditional in parts of Arabia and South Asia.
