The women freedom to choose their presentation in the public space is not as limited in a secular society like France as it is in more traditional Muslim countries.
You should note however, that here in France, the scarf is not always forced upon the young women in question: many of them decided to go that way against the will of their parents; often, their mother, aunts, etc.. don't and never have worn the scarf.
Speaking on TV, they sounded to me (white male, mid-forties) more like your typical rebellious teenage girl than anything else, and were often overachieving students at school which bodes rather well for their future, scarf or not. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Now islam, in its Saudi dominated Wahhabi form, the backward fundamentalist mode that has dominated global islam in the last 30 years, is felt to be incompatible with modern western democratic liberal ideologies, thus triggering a crisis in individual believers that suggests an either/or choice that is less determined by the Qu'ran than by politically motivated power brokers operating out of the Arabian peninsula.
It is a more subtle and interesting process, but that's the capsule version. keep to the Fen Causeway
