France’s intolerant face
So much for Liberté, égalité, fraternité. French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative government has just exposed the ugly face of official intolerance by enforcing a pathetic but draconian law that prohibits women from wearing full-face veils in public. Those who defy the law risk arrest, public humiliation, a $200 fine and being frogmarched into re-education classes. Whatever one thinks of such garb as the niqab or burqa, this sets a dark precedent for intolerance toward Europe’s estimated 44 million Muslims. Already, women have been detained under the new law, outside Sarkozy’s Elysée Palace and Notre Dame Cathedral. Ironically, women are free to sunbathe topless at Cannes, but may no longer cover their faces there.