As I’ve now expressed my view on this issue several times (see here and follow the links back to earlier posts), I won’t comment on yesterday’s vote in the French national assembly to ban the wearing of religious symbols. I’ll point you towards other reading. Staying, first, with Sophie Masson (from the post immediately below): she writes, in the Sydney Morning Herald, of the paradox which she sees in the new law:
By banning symbols and depriving people of the right to religious expression, they are stirring up trouble but are not targeting the real problem – the failure of French society to integrate its Muslim youth, and the consequent rise in the influence of radicals.
…..
Luc Ferry said recently that his ideal is a system of religious-style ethics: a secular system that goes deep but keeps religion well out, calling it “sacred secularism”. He was not challenged on the contradiction. Perhaps that was because it perfectly illustrated the French paradox.
Scott Martens has a long and thoughtful post on the subject at A Fistful of Euros; it should be read in full. There is also a shorter post at the same place by Mrs Tilton, who says:
The French treasure laïcité as a safeguard of the republican values of liberté, égalité et fraternité. And so it is. All the more perverse, then, that liberté be abridged under the banner of laïcité.
And see also Chris Brooke. He doubts that ‘the Conseil d’État in Paris or the court in Strasbourg [will] strike down the new law’.