France's War on the Veil

The editors of the Tablet (in London, not Brooklyn) have a fine editorial criticizing the French government's appeal to its far right fringe by banning the wearing of the veil by Muslim women. As the editors note, the policy stands in a long line of French anti-religious policies. The laic laws of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were targeted mostly at Catholics. Today, they are targeted as Muslims. They are just as ugly now as they were in the time of the Third Republic.