To enforce or ban attire is wrong

The discussions in France are moving ahead on President Nicolas Sarkozy's eccentric plan to ban the burqa, the head-to-toe covering worn by a few Muslim women (no more than several hundred in all of France today).

The proposal is badly flawed in that it over-rides an individual's right to wear what they might wish, and assumes that the burqa is an imposition. This error was eloquently summed up by French Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara, who is a Muslim, when she said last week that a French court was right last month to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears the burqa, adding that she hoped the ruling would "dissuade certain fanatics from imposing the burqa on their wives".

French lawmakers should concentrate on considering whether such an imposition is wrong, not the clothing itself. By looking for an easy Muslim symbol to target, they will get themselves into the same mess that was created by France's 2004 law insisting on secular clothing for students. It managed to discriminate in favour of Christian and Jewish students by assuming that the wearing of crosses or stars of David was 'discrete' and therefore legal, but that headscarves were 'conspicuous' and therefore illegal.