The assumption that this is exclusively a problem with immigrants, is one that springs to mind.
As far as I know, it’s possible to be a French citizen, and also a Muslim.
It’s stuff like this that makes me glad I live in California. At least I don’t have to worry about the government telling my mom she can’t wear a sari or telling me I can’t wear a kurta pajama. And I look really hot in a couple of my kurta pajamas.
Except for the last word those are completely reasonable demands. It is France. Women should not be wearing burqas. And immigrants should assimilate.
Besides that, there will be next to no effects since so few women wear burqas. Al Qaeda might bitch, but who gives a shit what they say and besides they already have the scarf ban to bitch about and Bob Laden is probably busy with his new green environmental agenda.
Really? I mean… really? Is that just because it’s burqas, or should they expect to have to blend in in every way? It’s France, not the Borg.
Also, what about Muslim women who are not immigrants?
No really. Really really. Yes they should assimilate to a reasonable amount. If they want to live in a place where burqas are commonplace and an acceptable part of the culture, there are other places they can immigrate to. But it is off topic so perhaps you want to take it to another thread. What about Muslim women that are not immigrants? There have already been many other threads about the burqa.
Off topic? You brought the subject up.
I could see assimilation requirements working at the point of immigration - i.e. if you want to come in, you have to do this, but is it really fair to impose them retrospectively on people who may have been there for years, or may not be immigrants at all?
To a point, I agree. I would have a problem if they refused to learn French at all, didn’t recognize the state’s authority or insisted on Shariah law for everyone.
However, I don’t see a culture-influenced choice of *clothing *to be an opposition or obstacle to integration, any more that I see couscous restaurants or hookah bars to be OMAGOD NOT FRENCH!! (though the hookah bars were regrettably all closed down with the no smoking ban. Shame, I enjoyed them a lot).
Besides, there have been no laws to ban the various lace hats of Brittany for instance. So if there’s a hard line push to dress casually or DIE, then there’s still hypocrisy and double standards.
And of course, as **Mangetout **rightly says, not everyone who wears a veil or even a burqah is an immigrant. In many cases, they were born here, went to school here, have a job here, married here, got kids here. There’s nowhere to send them back to : they’re French. And if they opt to wear a burqa, then burqas are worn in France, by French people. It’s part of the cultural panorama.
Yes, ostensibly the school ban targeted any and all overt religious symbols including yarmulkes or ostentatious crosses, though it wasn’t called “the veil affair” for no reason ;).
This one, however, only concerns burqas.
This is so true. When the French had its colonies, they never, ever tried to impose French culture on those colonies. I distinctly recall that all French persons, private and government alike, had to become completely fluent in the local language before they could move to or work in a colony. That’s why today, almost nobody in former french colonies speak French, because the French bent over backwards to assimilate into the local culture.
One small effect, all good:
Man who forced wife to wear burqa is denied French citizenship
Or have that chosen for them, if it is in fact an instance of burqa and niqab being forced upon the women as an obligation of marriage/residence in their fathers’ homes, and not their own choice.
So France denies citizenship to a man who forced his wife into burqa. So now what? He goes home to wherever he’s from, and his wife not only has no freedom, she doesn’t even have the opportunity of freedom that she’d have had, if she could’ve stayed in France. That’s useful. “We’re so concerned with your freedom, we’re going to send you back to where there is no chance that you’ll ever get any! Au bientot!”
A man who has nothing to contribute to European society that we want is sent back to where he came from. That’s a positive. The woman either has nothing to contribute, or if forced to wear a burka, unable to contribute anything. If she is forced to wear a burka and would rather be wearing a short top and designer jeans, sucks for her, but the overall effect would still be a positive for France without men forcing their women to wear burkas and burka-clad women.
See, that’s why I can tell you’re a foreigner. You just don’t get it.
What really happened is, after we’d colonized them thar backwards places, they became de facto part of France. So it’s the locals who had to assimilate.
I do get it. For example, there used to be this place called Vietnam which was a French colony. Now, if any Frenchman wanted to go to Vietnam, he was expected to speak Vietnamese and dress like a Vietnamese (because the French were so busy bending over backwards to the local culture).
One day, a few Frenchman showed up in Saigon wearing jaunty berets instead of Vietnamese clothing. And poof, just like that, Vietnam completely disappeared. That’s why today, Saigon is known as Jaunty Beret City.
You start letting a few people run around Paris wearing burqas, and in a few years, Paris is going to be called Jaunty Burqa City.