Veronique, as I’m certain you know, the French understand the concept of freedom of religion very well, but they are, quite rightly, wary about giving special privileges to religion — laïcité and all that. That’s why they were well within their rights to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols (including the Islamic headscarf) from state schools. As to whether they were wise to do so, I wasn’t so sure back when that law was introduced, but I may well have been proved to have been too pessimistic. Similarly, if it has not already done so, France would be perfectly entitled to insist that public employees not wear the burqa at work.

That said, although almost all societies do enact dress codes that reflect their notions of decency, banning the burqa from the street seems to me to be both a step too far and, quite possibly, counter-productive. What Sarkozy should do, however, is ensure that his fellow-citizens are as free to criticize the burqa as he is. In a country that stamps on free speech in the name of combatting the bogeyman of “Islamophobia,” it’s by no means clear that this indeed the case.