Yeah, that looks like islamofobia all right.

It seems to me and this point that the people who think that have assumptions and axioms I don't share and apparently can't even find. Our universes don't overlap in this area (any more, say, than they do with the beliefs of the religious or the Dawkins Church of Atheism) and the argument is pointless.

Charlie Hebdo is troubled by the veil?  Sounds to me like the very definition of islamophobia

um hello? You are perhaps unaware of Charlie's historic opposition to burqas?

That editorial irritates the hell out of me, because
a) Nobody is forcing Riss to by pig-free sandwiches, and
b) the idea that there is a continuum between debating Tariq Ramadan and suicide bombing is ridiculous and offensive.

However, the thesis that it is islamophobic to be troubled by a woman's burqa is an attempt at political censorship. Because wearing a burqa in public in a secular society is a political act, and a legitimate subject of political debate.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

En 1989, l'affaire du foulard de Creil vous conduit à signer un manifeste contre le « Munich de l'école républicaine  ». Est-ce un nouveau tournant ?

Malgré notre appel, c'est cette gauche «  tolérante  » au gouvernement qui emporte la partie. Certains le regrettent aujourd'hui. Car la «  tolérance  » s'est retournée contre celles que l'on croyait aider. 1989 est un tournant, incontestablement. Mais un autre basculement s'opère dès 1991, celui de la guerre civile algérienne, lors de laquelle le Front islamique du salut s'affronte au gouvernement algérien, qui contient les prémices de la dérive actuelle. Les féministes venues d'Algérie ou d'Iran n'ont pourtant pas cessé de nous avertir  : «  Vous ne voyez pas que ce qui se passe chez nous va arriver chez vous ?  » En l'espace de dix ans, de nombreuses filles des quartiers se sont mises à porter le voile en France. Révélation divine  ? Non, montée de la pression islamique. Seule la loi peut protéger celles qui le portent sous cette pression. Or, lorsqu’on les soutient, on est considéré comme «  islamophobe  ».

C'est pour cette raison que, comme vous l'avez déclaré, «  il ne faut plus avoir peur d'être islamophobe  »  ?

Je considère que la plupart des Français partagent ce point de vue mais qu'ils sont tétanisés par l'accusation d'islamophobie. Etre traité d'islamophobe est un opprobre, une arme que les islamo-gauchistes ont offerte aux extrémistes. Taxer d'islamophobie ceux qui ont le courage de dire  : «  Nous voulons que les lois de la République s'appliquent à tous et d'abord à toutes  » est une infamie. Pour ma part, je persiste et je signe. Les islamo-gauchistes sont certes une minorité, mais influente et largement relayée par des grands médias et journalistes de gauche qui, par là même, se coupent du pays réel.

Elisabeth Badinter appelle au boycott des marques qui se lancent dans la mode islamique

I admire and support Badinter's courage -- or is it simply self-confident indifference? -- to take a principled stance against the veil based on her belief that the vast majority of women and girls in France who wear the veil do so because of montée de la pression islamique, despite the apparently elevated risk of being a branded an islamophobe in France these days for making such an argument.  But I do not share that belief and cannot agree with her that she -- and the French state -- can make such an assumption and thus condemn the very wearing of clothing and accessories by some of its citizens as being against the secular values by default.  I feel much more fear at such a position taken by a state than I do of some religion taking over the culture (much less the laws) of the French nation.

Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer. - Charles le Téméraire

... Muslim and Arab communities find themselves increasingly attacked by discriminatory house raids and warrantless arrests, over four months into a heavy-handed "state of emergency" imposed and then extended by the French government in the wake of the Paris attacks.

This state violence is abetted by those in France's intellectual and political classes who are calling for the intensified criminalization and public shaming of Muslim women in the name of "saving" them. Predictably, such figures have declared open season on the veil.

[An activist against state racism and organizer for the website Contre Attaques] Assbague put it succinctly: "Muslim women are being used to divide the communities that are being targeted."

<...>

France's Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who has called for France to impose a state of emergency until the “total and global war" on ISIL is over, jumped into the fray on Monday. "The veil does not represent a fashion fad, no, it's not a color one wears, no: it is enslavement of women," he said at a roundtable on Islamism. Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, publicly backed Badinter in statements made Tuesday.

The crescendo of resentment directed towards women who wear the veil immediately heightened concerns among many Muslims, who are already living in a politically suffocating environment where hate crimes are becoming commonplace.

"There is an increase of hate violence, racist violence and racist discrimination," said Assbague. "A lot of women who wear the veil are prevented from going to school and working in public space. Every day we hear about a woman wearing the veil who is assaulted, arrested, and so on." ...

That said, I do think people being put-off is typically a function of Islamophobia and racism -- I've no data to back that up, of course, it's simply my impression -- and policy proposals on it do seem to have a tendency to come from right-wing politicians looking to prey on people's fears.  Sarkozy practically made a career of this.

The question for me comes down to whether the woman wishes to wear it or is forced to, and unfortunately we can't really know that short of evidence for oppressive male relations on a case-by-case basis.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.