While I wholeheartedly agree that the full face veil is detrimental to progress and entirely unnecessary, besides not being required in Islam, the government of any country does not have the right to determine or restrict the religious practices of any one group, within reason. The French Parliament is trying to do just that.
According to the French interior ministry:
… just 1,900 women in France wear the full veils.
And does the French Parliament find it necessary to pass an entire law just to restrict the religious activities of merely 1,900 women in all of France? Out of 5 million Muslims, merely 1,900 wear the full face veil. That’s 0.038% of the entire Muslim population in France. Out of a total French population of 62 million, that amounts to merely 0.003%.
Any law that applies to such a tiny percentage of the population is ridiculous. Any law that restricts religious practices is even worse. I could imagine a ban on human sacrifices by natives as something that could be acceptable, but restricting clothing choices is beyond reasonableness.
France already has a ban on “conspicuous religious symbols in schools,” which includes the headscarf, the yarmulke, the Sikh turban. It is using secularism as the excuse for restricting religious practices, just as Stalin used communism in the early 20th century.
