I don’t agree with banning veils. If a woman’s conscience prompts her to wear one, she should follow her conscience.
I am not so naive as to not interpret some muslim’s wearing of the veil as a distinct “I am not you!” message. Duly noted.
One question I have is whether or not veiling as a practice sets up veil-required neighborhoods? That is, areas where a woman not wearing a veil may feel at risk for doing so? I think there is evidence for this in muslim-majority countries. I don’t know about Paris - but I have noticed the periodic car-burning episodes in certain neighborhoods (who doesn’t want to burn a Renault, by the way? They almost burn themselves, if gven half a chance. I once owned a '86 Renault Encore I would have happily burned by the time I sold it!)
To some extent this is the argument employed by the “uncovered meat” guy. Remember him?
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-412697/Outrage-Muslim-cleric-likens-women-uncovered-meat.html
Where I do draw the line is on driver’s licenses. I don’t see how having a clear picture of a person’s face on a driver’s license is a huge intrusion into a person’s civil liberties - unless you want to do away with driver’s licenses for all and have a big free-for-all on the highways, woo- hoo!
In the US, our state-issued driver’s licenses are de-facto ID cards, and they include a person’s picture, plus height, weight, eye color, glasses yes/no, address, vehicle types licensed to drive (commercial, motorcycle, etc.) and organ donor status (in California, anyway). The police do use this information if they have a need to come looking for you, and it seems absurd to me that anyone would be allowed to have their picture taken wearing a veil for this purpose. As to muslim privacy or modesty, a person’s driver’s license is kept in one’s pocket or purse while driving and is not displayed publicly, so I don’t see privacy/modesty as an issue.