They should not be banned in a free country, but France long ago ceased being a free country. We don't ban jeans worn about the crotch or trousers pulled up to the armpits, baggy jackets (which can and do sometimes hide weapons) or untied shoes and if some woman (or man) wants to wear a burqa, that's their business however servile and stupid I might find it.

TSA, police, and the general public should profile away, though.

Vitamin D deficiency? If that's the best defense Pipes can come up with for this law, even he should recognize that he's grasping at straws.

Let's get down to the obvious truth here. None of the reasons Pipes gives above are the reason for the clothing bans, and he knows it. The goal is to establish that this extremely strict version of Islam is not in keeping with French values and to stigmatize the religious choice made by people wearing the burqa. European countries simply don't think of free speech rights the way that America does, and they are fairly comfortable limiting an individual's speech or freedom of religion when they think it necessary to promote cultural harmony. The same conservatives who rail about an author being punished in Europe for anti-Muslim comments often misses that actions like the burqa ban are part of the same phenomenon -- willingness in Europe to limit expression seen as fringe or likely to cause alarm.

Now, I have no problem arguing with supporters of a more European approach to free speech, though I think such an approach is antithetical to the entire idea of free speech. What I do have a problem with is Pipes' transparent efforts to lie to the readers here. If Pipes wants to support this ban, then he should recognize it as a limit on free expression meant to stigmatize a particular religious group, and explain why such behavior is justified. But to try to place a non-religious sheen over this law, suggesting flatly implausible reasons for the ban, is just disingenuous. Anyone who wants to debate the limits of speech rights deserves better.

As a libertarian, this "ban fever" conservatives get drives me crazy! If women want to advertise their submission by walking around in their bee-keeper outfits. let 'em.
You can take 'em out of the middle ages, but…

Covering one's face is an indicator of malicious intent and should at the least be probable cause for a search.

"Covering one's face is an indicator of malicious intent and should at the least be probable cause for a search."

That will keep the cops busy at Halloween. Whatever happened to the days when conservatives mocked the French? Now some people are in love with the French and their statist ways.

jcoleman, I have a hard time believing that your bank makes Jewish men take off their yarmulkes, or would make a nun take off her wimple, or would refuse to do business with Sikhs. If they are so unpleasant to their customers, I hope they suffer accordingly.

(Frankly, it would make more sense to ban men with fac[ial] hair than to make people take off their baseball caps, if you really want to be able to get a good shot of robbers.

It isn't the proper role of government to discriminate against people within its boundaries. In free societies, that right falls to citizens in exercising property rights and free speech. However, since immigration has become a statist role, the state must assume responsibility for importing people more interested in colonizing than assimilation. One could therefore argue that actions such as the burqa ban are justified even though they will fail in fending-off growing Islamic cultural dominance. Civil war, Western submission or Islamic reformation are the only foreseeable outcomes. The French government has chosen the civil war option by firing the first volley of what will simply reinforce Islamic intransigence.

By the way, choosing a religion may be lawful, but the United States has never held that entitles one to do absolutely anything in religion's name. In the late 1800s the Mormon Church was nearly put out of business due to the practice of polygamy. Allowing some religious practices would take society in a direction it emphatically does not want to go, and society has a right to suppress them.

Our constitution prohibits government from restricting the free exercise of our religion. We can't ban burkas just because we don't like them, or we think they are bad for the people who wear them. That would make us progressives. We can require that people driving a car or flying on a commercial flight be properly identified. The identification process can be done in private, just like the "pat-downs".