French government seems intentionally pushing the controversial legislation despite the obviously expected opposition from various sides. Besides as easily seen, Islamophobic motive is blatantly apparent. The most shady and debated justification seems the defense of the freedom of autonomy of Muslim women on the ground that allowing burqa in public place amounts to letting the infringement of their autonomy.
These debates concerning the freedom of women tend to disregard the voluntariness of faith embodied by these women. I am obviously too ignorant to elaborate Islamic concepts, but I am guessing that maybe because of the prominence of “Western’ influence, the absence of any form of encumbrance is often associated with the notion of freedom, but it doesn’t necessarily true in certain cultures or religions (e.g. the virtue of asceticism in Confucianism)
Admittedly they were born as Muslims in the first place, so it might be possible to consider some process of brainwashing has been underway during the nurturing period to make them unsuspectingly believe in the apparently male-dominant faith and practices (this point is also contentious). But the same applies not only to other religions but also to many predetermined default life-circumstances. I didn’t get to choose my nationality, but no one seems to be entitled to prevent me from having some communal attachment to my country ( it’s highly disputable. I know. c.f. Paying uneven attention and sympathy to the victims of the earthquake while staying ignorant about what’s going on in Cote Divore, is permissible?? I don’t know ) and I think its somewhat an acceptable reason for me to claim my right of not being intervened by some external agent to stop me from holding such sentiment (as in the case of religion, “belief” can be replaced instead of sentiment).
Another analogy can be drawn from filial piety. I don’t think it’s justifiable for any authority to step into the internal affair of family insofar as the affair doesn’t involve the infringement of rights of presumed victim.
Not being able to show up without veil in public sphere seems to be a relatively severe violation of one’s autonomy to some (as I’m tempted to think), but it becomes blurred when it is accompanied by voluntary will. Having said, even with the presence of volition, some actions should be curtailed by some external force because of evidently self-destructive harm done to the victim e.g. suicide, drug addiction. But as for one’s belief, it would be safe to say that as long as voluntary will is involved, it doesn’t cause any severe harm that might be destructive to one’s autonomy or integrity. The justification of paternalistic intervention on the basis of liberating women from patriarchal society is not likely to be valid.
In terms of public security concern, the justification often presented seems to be quite fair to me. It should be permissible to claim the right to take a glimpse of pedestrians’ face for the sake of self-protection. It would be scary to bump into some random guy whose face is covered with full-face mask. But some problems seem to crop up when the prevention of expected violence is taken into consideration. That is: such foreseeable danger can never be ruled out, and the distinction between what is permissible in public sphere and what is not is highly ambiguous. For instance a person who is wearing long sleeve shirt might be concealing some weapon in the sleeve, such as dagger, but banning to wear long sleeve shirt in public on such ground is obviously impractical. I know it’s getting nitpicky, and the claim based on security matter seems to be ok to me.
Having said, because of the ostensibly implicated islamohobic accent behind (exceptionally specified small proportion of “targets” and the prioritized legislation in relation to other national concerns), I’m inclined to object to the legislation.