Fifty-nine people were detained while trying to demonstrate at Place de la Nation in eastern Paris, as were two others while traveling there from Britain and Belgium, said Nicolas Lerner, chief of staff for the Paris police chief.

The arrests come amid in a rising, if small, groundswell of controversy over Monday’s start of an official ban of garments that hide the face, which includes Muslim veils such as the slit-eyed niqab and the full face-covering burqa. Women who disobey the law risk a fine, special classes and a police record.

The two would-be protesters who had tried to arrive from Britain and Belgium were known to French authorities. Police were under existing orders to stop and expel them, if they tried to reach France, Lerner said.

Secular France has been in the throes of a debate about the role of religion in its society. Many Muslims have felt stigmatized by a 2004 law that banned Islamic headscarves in classrooms and during the intense debate that preceded the adoption of the face-veil ban last year.

The measure forbids women to hide their faces in public places, even in the streets. Violators could face a fine of €150 ($215) or a citizenship course — or both. Anyone found forcing a woman to cover her face risks a year in prison and a €30,000 fine ($43,000), and possibly twice that if the veiled person is a minor.

Authorities estimate at most 2,000 women in France wear the outlawed veils. France’s Muslims number at least 5 million, the largest such population in western Europe.

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