According to news reports today the French have either banned the Burqa, niqab or veils. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find text of the actual bill to find out what has actually been banned as it makes quite a difference, mind as I don’t speak or read French it probably wouldn’t help if I could find the text of the bill. The French aren’t alone in such a ban as it’s already in place in Belgium and (allegedly) Syrian universities, however the details matter as all of them could be trivially worked around my anyone so minded to do so. Whilst it wouldn’t be as traditional as the niqab or a veil as the aim is to conceal ones face would a mask do, or a balaclava or even cunningly deployed scarf?
Ultimately the only way to prevent Muslim women covering their faces is to ban face coverings in general – which is no doubt much easier to do by expanding existing legislation (now where have we seen that before). As Legiron observed a while back it’s not about the veil but it is a bit of proposed EU legislation, which again will surely be much easier to force on all of us once it’s already in place in a few countries. After all then it’s just harmonisation of existing laws, so not such a big deal. So to make sure we can all be seen on CCTV and by FIT the Venice carnival will be killed as will “traditional” wedding and funeral garb, and we’ll all get to freeze our faces off in winter. Mind I do have a vested interest in being able to hide my face.
