[Overpaid Slacker]

Purry -
Actually, I applaud the French sticking to their principles on this one. This has been a tenet of French socio-political life since the founding of the Republic -- and I don't think it's a relic or a dinosaur of an idea. The law doesn't single out Muslims, it applies to indicia of all religions (if I understand it correctly).

The reason this is a big issue, IMHO, is because it directly affects Muslims, who are very used to pressuring their ideological opponents in their host democratic countries with cries of prejudice, new crusade, etc. Essentially, wanting to enjoy the opportunities of democracy w/o having to play by the host's other, dispassionately applied rules.

Look, for example, at the ability of CAIR and other Islamic-interest groups in the US. Many of these groups (not most, perhaps, but many) of them are thinly-veiled funding organizations for the Islamofascists and terrorists. However, they scream bloody murder if someone has something critical to say (factual, empirical, and/or political) about Islam, fundamentalism or even Islamic terrorism -- and people cave in to the ridiculous protests!

A petty but telling example is when the movie The Sum of All Fears was going into production -- in the book, the terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists. Not a terrible stretch of the imagination. CAIR launched a propaganda campaign and threatened the producers with all sorts of nasty consequences and "production complications" (my words, not theirs) unless the producers changed the evildoers from radical Muslims to ... well, something else... and hey, aren't neo-Nazi white supremacists an easy target?

So, I'm for France sticking up for a fundamental principle of its government and society. The law applies equally to Jews (no head coverings) Muslims (no head coverings) and Christians (no "large" crosses). The non-PC side of me observes that it seems that many Muslims really look for reasons to get all self-rightous, pissed off and march in the streets.

JP