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What's your thought's on Veil Banning in France?

New furor over France's Muslims as veil ban looms - USATODAY.com

As long as they don't show up for their license picture wearing one I don't see a problem. Personally it would drive me crazy wearing one hot, itches, vision side to side blocked just annoying.

I have no problem with it at all.

Not too sure what the previous two posters are OK with, is it OK with the banning or the wearing ?

I disagree with the total banning, but I would support a ban in places that need security, the same as motor helmets in Banks, hoodies in covered shopping centres.

My over all feelings are one of disappointment, that the wearers still have the need to wear them, and that the hysteria surrounding Muslims makes the man in the street suspicious of any body that feels the need to show their faith in that manner.

Were they unable to find a sympathetic judge to block the implementation of this law?

You're looking at it from an american perspective. In france you can have any religion you want but it stays private.

the french parliament also passed a non-binding resolution condemning the full Islamic face veil as "an affront to the nation's values of dignity and equality". The niqab and burka are widely seen in France as threats to women's rights and the secular nature of the state.

BBC News - Behind France's Islamic veil

By hiding your face, Mrs Badinter explains as she sips a small black coffee in her elegant apartment in Paris, you breach the principle of equality.

"She who hides her face is in a position superior to mine," she says. "She sees me but she refuses to reciprocate."

Then there is the strongly guarded idea of secularism in France, the absolute separation of religion and the state rooted in the 1789 revolution and enshrined in a century-old law.


Progreessive secular muslim states like Turkey banned the veil until fairly recently, headscarves are allowed but the full veil is still banned - because it represses women. Iran banned them until 1979 and the fundamantalists got back in.

It used to be the case that a woman without a head covering or without the hair bound up was either single (unattached to a male) or more commonly a prostitute. Or as they have it in Glasgow a wee hairy, in edwardian times the ladies of th night wore their hair loose to show their availability and lack of respectability, nowadays they wear short skirts and stilletoes. That's where the phrase loose woman comes from. The bra burners were also symbolically throwing off the strictures of society that bound them.

Spain and portugal are also considering such bans. How do you draw a distinction between a religious custom and a repressive medeival custom that has no place in modern society?