Should the full veil be banned?
The news today is that the French National Assembly has voted to ban the wearing of the full veil in public. I’ve debated this issue with various friends who have taken different positions on the matter. My own position is against a ban.
On the one hand, I am both a secularist and a feminist, so I am very uncomfortable and unhappy to see Muslim women covering their face. I wish that they would not do so. On the other hand, I am a cosmopolitan individual who respects cultural differences and I am a libertarian who believes that as a guiding principle people should be free to do what they want as long as this freedom does not curtail the freedom of others.
In fact, of the 64 million living in France, 5 million are Muslims but only an estimated 2,000 wear the full veil. This makes me wonder if much of the opposition is xenophobic and anti-Islamic. I expect – and hope – that the ban will be reviewed by the French Constitutional Court and, if it survives that review, challenged at the European Court of Human Rights.
BBC online has a visual guide to the different types of Muslim female headscarves here.