The New French Fashion in Civil Rights
The French parliament wants to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa – the full, face-covering garment worn by some orthodox believers – in public places. But, while no woman should be forced to cover herself up, nor, in a pluralist society, should anyone be forced not to.
NEW YORK – First the Swiss ban minarets. Now the French parliament wants to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa – the full, face-covering garment worn in orthodox Arab countries, and now adopted by some orthodox non-Arabs – in public places. The hijab, the headscarf that some Muslim women wear, is already banned in French public schools, where the “ostentatious” display of any religious symbolism is forbidden. The burqa, however, is worn far more rarely in France – by about 1,900 of nearly six million Muslims, almost none of them from a traditional burqa-wearing country.
NEW YORK – First the Swiss ban minarets. Now the French parliament wants to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa – the full, face-covering garment worn in orthodox Arab countries, and now adopted by some orthodox non-Arabs – in public places. The hijab, the headscarf that some Muslim women wear, is already banned in French public schools, where the “ostentatious” display of any religious symbolism is forbidden. The burqa, however, is worn far more rarely in France – by about 1,900 of nearly six million Muslims, almost none of them from a traditional burqa-wearing country.