There's a very good article about this issue here:
France behind the veil This year, increasingly spooked by plummeting approval ratings and a far right invigorated by its new leader, Marine Le Pen, Sarkozy has again attempted to distract voter anxiety in the wake of tough austerity measures and skyrocketing unemployment rates. He focused on the Islamic symbol of the veil in a discussion on the republic's social ills.
And an interesting insight into the reasons one woman wears it (I'm sure some of you could relate to this):
Ahmas grew up in a Muslim family in which nobody wore the veil, and her teenage years were no different to those of many other French girls: discos, a bit of smoking, boys. At 25, however, a dream she had had as a child returned to her with potent, life-changing clarity.
''I remember seeing myself on my bed, rising higher above the room, then the house, the street, the neighbourhood, rising up into the skies seeing everything recede, like being in an airplane,'' she says.
''Then I saw two enormous feet, gold of a gold … such a gold colour I cannot describe … precious stones of vivid unimaginable hues and then a voice that is not like a voice like yours or mine … said, 'You will go to hell because you know how to practise your faith but you have failed to do so.'
''I cried, I begged, I pleaded for another chance. Then the voice said I would be granted this, but I would return with no memory. I woke and remembered nothing … until six years ago.''
That day, she summoned a disbelieving friend and talked her into buying her a burqa. She did not leave the house until it was delivered, and has never gone out without a veil since. ''I found this thirst to read, to study my faith, to know more, to practise and honour this second chance I was given … I want to bring out the best of myself, I want to go to paradise, earn my place there."
For Rachid Nekkaz, a French-Algerian property tycoon, the ban on the veil not only smacks of political hypocrisy and tactics of distraction by an increasingly unpopular president but also contravenes the French constitution.
Nekkaz, who has declared himself a Socialist candidate in next year's presidential rounds, has set up a fighting fund to pay the fines of women who defy the law. This week he pledged to sell a suburban property to finance the civil disobedience campaign as well as an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
''I personally am against the niqab,'' he told me in the garden of the house he plans to sell. ''But I will defend to the death a person's right to wear it in the street.
''The most precious thing in life is liberty … I am lucky enough to have the assets to defend this liberty which for me, is more than that. It is a right.''
With that, the flamboyant Nekkaz walks over to Hind Ahmas, and dons a Venetian mask in solidarity.
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Topic: OK, so France has (oficially_ banned the Burqaa few days ago..