What is your stance on burkinis or headscarves on French (or American) beaches (or streets)?

[MADem]

167. They were--both religious nuts, AND insufferable. They threw people out of their little

New World communities for being late to prayers and not working hard enough. That had to be a bit daunting, I should imagine. I guess some of the locals were friendly so some people managed OK.

You're always going to find people taking advantage of a situation. It's human nature. I do find it telling that the overwhelming majority either agreed (60%) or didn't care (30%) with this ban. That leaves a very small ten percent who opposed it. Nonetheless, the courts ruled against the majority, but I think the mood of the nation has been re-certified, if it hadn't been already.

France has one of the largest immigrant populations of any nation in Europe. Until recent years, they've managed to fold newcomers into their society, mainly by saying, from the get-go, "Be More French." It's only been in this new century that they've really seemed to struggle--and the struggle has brought out all sorts, from the ones who want to maintain the culture, the measured and ceremonial meals, the fine wines, and the unhurried pace, up to and including the Le Pen types (who are using this tension to fuel their rightwing movement).

The real victims in all this are the women who are forced by their husbands or fathers to go out of their homes every day wearing a billboard for a religion that marginalizes and denigrates them in its most fundamentalist iteration. I do think the intent of the law was to give them cover to assimilate into the society, not to point at or mock them. The niqab (face masking) ban of over a decade ago had that effect, and after an initial outcry, people got over it and it's not even discussed anymore.