Passed by the lower house of Parliament last July and approved this Tuesday by the French Parliament, a ban on any veils worn in public which cover the face, including the burqa, will go into effect next spring. “Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place,” the French government said in a statement according to the CNN article. According to a study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, this ban is approved by 82% of the French populous.
The French burqa ban has been covered by this blog before, but with the explicit expectation that the French Senate would block it, or that it would be blocked by their own Constitutional review process, the latter of which may still be a possibility.
It is the opinion of the author that this ban constitutes nothing less than a disturbing and reprehensible confirmation of a xenophobic attitude which has overtaken France and is alarmingly popular in other parts of the Western world, including the United States. The ban limits the expression of personal freedom and specifically targets the French Islamic presence whilst hiding behind a guise of women’s rights, despite the establishment of protectionary laws more than equivalent to that task.
