When a Muslim woman was fined late last month in Nantes, France for driving while wearing a full face veil, the issue of polygamy burst into the spotlight when it was revealed that her husband had three other “wives.”

The incident has re-opened the debate in Europe over the dilemma faced by European governments with, on the one hand, aging native populations and below-replacement birth rates, and, on the other, burgeoning Muslim immigrant populations with customs incompatible with existing laws.

Objections to his alleged polygamy were answered by the woman’s husband, Lies Hebbadj, an Algerian-born Muslim, who pointed out that, in accordance with modern French customs, he does not have four wives but one wife and four mistresses, plus 12 children between them.

“If one can be stripped of one’s French nationality for having mistresses, then many French could lose theirs,” Mr. Hebbadj, a halal butcher, said after consulting his legal counsel. “As far as I know, mistresses are not forbidden, neither in France, nor in Islam.”

Hebbadj reportedly became a naturalized French citizen after he married Anne, his French wife. But French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, has said that Hebbadj could have his citizenship revoked if he his found to be practicing polygamy. Authorities are investigating whether he was legally married to the other women in civil ceremonies, and whether he was profiting from single mother welfare benefits the other women may have been receiving fraudulently.

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With five million Muslims, France has the largest European Muslim population, the majority of whom are immigrants from African countries. The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights reported in 2006 that at least 180,000 people, including children, are living in polygamous situations in France, despite the country specifically banning the practice in 1993.

While President Sarkozy has said he wants to return France to its former “basic values,” the country has fully embraced the post-1960s social and sexual revolution, that emphasizes “pluralism” and moral “diversity” over uniform moral values, leaving leaders in a quandary when attempting to deal with social breakdown and cultural clashes.

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