The veil will probably be banned in France

Nabila Ramdani writes in the Guardian about the "veil debate" in France and assumes that the law will go through. For come reason she assumes that the debate in France to do with that very French concept laïcité is somehow far more intellectual and sophisticated than in Britain though she does signal her dislike of President Sarkozy by saying that he "was widely criticised for targeting full-veil wearers as part of his Ukip-style national identity debate". It is, however, hard to get away from the notion that the wearing of the veil, whether the women in question choose to do so or not (mostly nobody asks them) is at odds with Western ideas of equality between the sexes in legal terms and opposition to gender apartheid.