Does anyone have a problem with people looking like this?

[Igel]

29. No, but unrelated to the question you want an answer to.

That's disengenuous bordering on deceitful and manipulative.

The Chinese would remove them for their ID pictures or when asked to do so for ID purposes. That's not the case with some Muslim women in the US. The cases are similar, but dogs and cats are similar. Let's not go so far to say as they're really the same. Meow-woof!

The French are different. In the last 200 years, from the reaction of the Catholic Church in the Revolution, as well as in supporting monarchist restorations, the Church--and by extension all religion--has been excised from public life. It has no relevance except to the extent that there are vestiges. Things like Ascension Day still being a national holiday. Hard to get rid of national holidays, even if most people don't go to church on them.

Islam has no claim on the public sphere in France. It's not discriminatory against Islam; in fact, it's being even-handed in dealing with religion.

But even this misses two points. The first is whether to defend the indigenous culture or not. It's something that DU would split over, but I've seen the same problem in Prague. Given a large influx of Americans in the early '90s a lof of the indigenous population resented having foreigners with no allegiance dictate terms to them. They were prepared to be tolerant, but not subservient. When in Rome, you do as the Romans do. I'd expect American retirees to Mexico to have respect for local customs and traditions. Same in France.

The thing is, France was a nation state without just one nation. In the 1800s it, like other European states, built a nation-state. In Brittany, in Aquitaine, over in Alsace, in the Occitan region, French spread. Not only there--standard French largely wiped out the patois. There are traces of them left, but not the sharp dialectal divisions that were documented in the 1870s and 1880s during the school survey. While the nation-state's frayed, it's still largely in place. There is mostly a homogeneous culture that is, in many areas, indigenous. They still like to have immigrants assimilate to the indigenous culture. The Chinese are still doing this, by the way, in the great wave of assimilation to all things Han.

The second point is the banlieus. That's where you find the full veils. It's also where you find some of the highest crime rates. It's also where you find the highest rates of resentment and rejection of all things French, even as the French support those in the banlieus. If there's a riot, you don't want to rush in to arrest them just to find that 20 "women" are walking away--and that if you ask them to remove their veil for ID purposes, well, you've set up the next riot because of the massive amounts of disrespect you've shown. Which brings us right back to identification. In this context, wearing a Richard-Nixon mask or a full veil amounts to the same thing.