I also cringe reading this as I wonder if someone might decide that the public wearing of crucifix or scapular is also of concern.  If the wearing of a religious garb such as burqa is outlawed we might worry about Catholic images.

this full ban is silly. i may only be gr.7 but i know when something has gone overboared.

Surely the laws of France stand ready to defend her women from the “oppression” of the burqa?  Surely France stands surefooted against those that would forcibly shroud them?  Surely all the nations armies will vigilantly defend her maidens from unscrupulous villains that would hold them hostage?

It would seem then, given the aforementioned sureties, that were a French woman to wear burqa, it would be of her own free will.  Who, then, is the true oppressor of women?

Further, who bases their cultural identity based on someone else’s identity?  Even if my homeland far more resembled a foreign country, I’d scarcely at all feel that I’d lost something, or that I’m less of whatever-I-am because those around me are something-else-entirely!

I should think that a people so reliant upon a vain notion of culture for their self-identification would be quite lost, lacking, as they do, a stable and sane foundation.

Has anyone asked how those women feel about this? I suppose they have…. but I don’t see this as having to do with religion but simply wrong because it is dictating what a woman can or cannot wear in her daily life. And to me that is just wrong. I lived in the middle east for almost 5 years, and I never thought of veiling as a sign of oppression. If anything, I would say that it is almost a sign of respecting the dignity of women. Her body is protected from visual ogling (and I witnessed the opposite many times when women were not covered), and this includes her face. Women can go to the head of the line in the post office, have a separate office for getting a drivers license that is much faster, and are just treated differently, but not necessarily worse. Furthermore, it is the women who choose it frequently. My husband was over at a friends and his wife would not come out because she was not covered—even though both my husband and hers said it was okay. I agree with an earlier comment: when will it reach to catholics? Or other religions? I am not saying that women were treated perfectly over there, or are in France, I am saying don’t assume that all women feel oppressed because they wear a veil. And furthermore, I don’t think it is the states position to dictate what people can or cannot wear.

In my own community, I have seen Muslim wear head coverings (not full face).  Some are quite colorful, very bright and cheery.

Just remember, just because I sometimes wear a scarf in the dead of summer doesn’t mean I’ve converted to Muslim…I’m just protecting my head from the weather.

I have seen western educated Muslim women are in Burqa while their mothers never even covered their heads in Pakistan. I do not know whether it is due to western education or because they find themselves victim of racism. According to Lord Burtend Russell, western education makes a man stupid and selfish. The credit cruch in the world is due to the policies of blue eyed western educated elites. British schooling is also in a mess because of such western educated elites. 
Burqa is not locking women, it is a buffer line between protecting chasity and exposing. Being naked and drunk is acceptabl but being covered and modest is inhuman.
No body has the right to tell a woman how to dress, or worse, how to undress? Let her wear what she likes, especially if it’s part of her religion. I see the banning of headscarves or niqabs as an attack on both religious freedom and on the rights of women & girls. A veil ban targets very few women; it speaks to a fear of other who is Muslim. This is Islamophobia. In the United Kingdom, there is a social and economic pressure on Muslim women not to cover themselves with headscarf or a veil. The tiny minority of women are being blamed for all the failure of integration policies through out Europe. European Muslims are more worried about the economy, the cost of living, decent housing and racism than about a burqa ban.
French president wants Muslim women to be topless like his wife who posed topless in fashion shows. He has no right to ban the burqa because it is undemocratic and an unqualified attack on individual freedom. Burqa is not just a piece of cloth but a lot of ideological and cultural connotation to it. Women are just being exploited in the name of rights. Burqa protects women’s rights and treat each women like a princess. No one has the right to ban the freedom of choice in a secular and democratic country. The right to choice is a basic fundamental right the person should have.
French president’s interpretation of burqa as a symbol of subservience is false. It is a usual habit of western ideologists to twist history and distort the facts inorder to project their culture as superior one. The president should be criminally tried for spreading such falsehood. To veil or not to veil should be an individual choice. Dress codes are for children, not for adults. Government legislated dress codes for the Taliban religious policy not western democracies. Women should be free to wear burqas. If women can get away with wearing cropped shirts and pants that show their panties, they should be able to waer burqas too.
Those Muslim women in Europe who want to wear burqa are being asked to migrate to another country, remind one of Shiv Sena’s suggestion to India’s Muslims to migrate to Pakistan or qubristan(graveyard). There is no difference of mentality between Hindus and Europeans. Both of them have no respect and tolerate those who are different.
People should understand that better than 90% of the women in France and Belgium (as also UK and Germany) who wear burqa, are young women who were born in those countries; they did not migrate from another country.  In fact some of them converted to Islam from Christianity and Judaism. .
The lawmakers in Belgium and France are trying to target such a small population is pure irrationality.  Unless the motivation is racial and sectarian hatred of the Muslims.  The same as BJP and Sangh Parivar in India. 
Equal rights, human rights, womens; rights are not just nice topics of discussion after dinner; or to make women the plaything for men’s pleasure.  They mean the right of each woman to determine her lifestyle as she so choses. The best thing to spread something is to outlaw it. If you outlaw burqas now in France, it will soon stand as a martyred symbol of ethnic cultural tradition in the face of racist oppression. Do you really want that? The fact is that western tradition of exposing female skin for the edification of the male sex is degrading.  I think I’d rather walk around the street looking like a ninja than wearing what girls these days are expected to wear. If I dressed up like a ninja all the time in the street It wouldnt hurt any one. So why the big fuss? I see the argument for oppression, but how the heck are you gonna know if its oppression or if the woman really wants to cover up?
Human rights organizations have declared such bans to be illegal and a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as violating the rights to freedom of expression and religion. Lawyers for human rights and Islamic groups are preparing to challenge the bans in both national courts and eventually, the European Court of Human Rights.
One Muslim woman, Caroline Chaiima, writing in Lepoint.fr, said she wore a veil: “Let those most closely concerned speak. I am a French woman born in France, with French parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and I am a Muslim. I wear the full veil and I feel like saying: So what? I am happy behind the veil, I protect myself from depraved stares. Neither my father, nor my brother, nor my husband forced the full veil upon me; it’s a personal choice.”
Iftikhar Ahmad
London School of Islamics Trust

There is also legislation banning the face veil (niquab, burka) in front of the Quebec legislature.  There have been confrontations with immigrant women in government-run classes where women have refused to remove their face veils in language classes, and also insisted that men in the classroom be seated so as to be out of their line of vision.  There are many questions.  Can one hire a woman to provide government services if she insists on remaining veiled while behind the desk?  Can a woman be asked to unveil in order to be photographed for a driver’s license?  Can that woman be asked to unveil so that her identity may be verified if she is stopped by police?  Can a veiled woman be a teacher in a school?

For purposes of clarification, these questions do not concern wearing the hijab, which is the head covering, unless it is in a sport context.  Wearing the hijab while playing soccer has been seen as a strangling hazard by sports federations, and one hotly contested by Muslim women.

There are many serious questions that arise when one considers the veil that covers the face, and where lines of clarification as to the rights of respective parties stand.  Legislation in setting standards that apply to everyone can be beneficial.

I would like to examine the background of the introduction of the burqa. The Muslim religion teaches that premarital sex and extra marital afffairs are sins against Allah. They consider that the uncovered female body may be a cause for lust and the resultant sins So a covering especially certain parts of the female body was considered advisable Thus the burqa was evolved. Also they find that the Western society( supposed to be christian) is very permissive in spite of Jesus Warning (Read Mathew ch 5 vs 25 to 30) So it is also in protest against the immodesty of exposed cleavages and thighs, the burqa proponents gain strength and it is a kind of preaching of their religion.

I think it is hightime for the women in Muslim community to think about the purpose of burqa. The purpose is not hiding the face but to be modest. Modesty demands only avoidance of sexually provocative clothes. One thing I cant understand why the Muslims are not fighting against abortion as they fight for retension of burqa in spite of their religious teaching against abortion.

Keep in mind that those Burka’s are a great way to hide bomb vests and other weapons.  You can’t always tell who’s hiding under there.  The europeans have even more to fear from that type of terrorism than we do, so I wouldn’t assume it’s just about some cultural objection to burka’s.  There’s alot more at stake here.

First and foremost, it’s an issue of security and nobody has mentioned that here.

Secondly, and you would know this if you had first hand experience living in Europe - the full head scarf is going against everything that a community is.  It disallows full facial expressions to be seen and is a barrier between those who have integrated and those that have not (or do not wish to).  I for one wouldn’t ask a person wearing a full head scarf directions or even try to communicate with one - especially being male.

I beg to differ Rose.  You don’t need to cover your face to be modest.  I see that every day young Muslim women wearing their princess-lined, ankle-length abayas and their hijabs, or the fashionable clothing layered over turtleneck sweaters and long, loose pants.  Women don’t have to cover their eyes in order to practice modesty of the eyes.  All they need do is divert their gaze. They don’t have to cover their noses or mouths or chins either.

Burka-wearing and niquab-wearing causes culture shock.  That is sufficient reason not to allow it.

I don’t think the burqa ban is really about the burqa at all.  It’s about the future of France, or lack there-of.  At least, the future of France as the French have known it here-to-for.  It is about the “war of the womb” and the fact that the French are dying out; they are failing to replace themselves, and instead France is becoming a Muslim nation.  In time, the French (as they previously thought of themselves) will be the minority.  The burqa ban is simply a piece of denial, a push-back against reality, that is doomed to fail.  If the French don’t value life, they will die out, they will cease to exist, and what we call “French” in ten or twenty years will be something other than what it is now.  Banning burqas might give some temporary emotional escape to the French, a false feeling that they can hold back the tide, but it won’t stop the reality of what is happening.  Rather than banning the burqa, they ought to get sized for one to prepare for their future when burqas will be required by law.

I truly believe that a country has the right to keep it’s identity,and force assimilation. Enough with all of this tiptoeing around religion. In America we lose religious rights constantly and I’m fed up assimilate or go home.

Burqas cover the faces of those who wear them. If I ran into a person wearing one, I would be very leery—-is it a religious woman or is it a creep wanting to harm me. We are known by our faces—our faces are on our driver’s license, etc. If a Muslim really complains, we then ask, is he an extremist who believe all peoples should be Muslim? Who knows in this day and age of such violence. Catholic women got used to not covering their heads in Church, so the Muslim women will also.  Imagine how hot the burqa is—-I agree with France on this one. Where I live the Muslims just cover their heads and neck. In my mind, it has nothing to do with equality of the sexes.

The burqa is not a religious requirement, It is a cultural norm that the beduouins used to protect both men and women in the desert. When this garment is used in a contemporary society to cause fear, death and destruction then governments become a little tense and enact laws to curb their use.  I dont think the total face covering is commanded in the koran and the French certainly have the right to protect their citizens.

I am in agreement with the french government about the burka.  I believe they are trying to keep their people safe from suicidal bombers (both men and women) with this ban.  For that reason alone, I am with the french government.

I agree with Rachel.  It is not a large step from banning burqas to banning crucifixes, scapulars, nuns habits and priests’ Roman collars.