The Unveiled Public Square

In the Wall Street Journal today, My friend Peter Berkowitz offers a defense of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s attempt to ban the full veiling of Muslim women in France.

“Restrictions on liberty in a free society are always suspect and in need of justification,” Peter wisely notes, but “the best justification is the protection and promotion of freedom”—and, as his headline claims: “What might be unthinkable in the U.S. looks more reasonable in France.”

Well, maybe so—but, actually, no, I’m unwilling to concede even that “maybe.” This is a bizarre restriction on liberty, justifiable only in the name of things that are peculiarly French and already limitations on liberty. Particularly the French misunderstanding of the relation of church and state.

Earlier this year, I wrote : “On all topics that touch on religion and public life—from Jewish relations to Catholic relations to Muslim relations—I can’t think of anything good the French state has to teach. Left or Right, the only lesson about democracy that France offers the world is: Don’t try this at home .”

The line made more than a few of our Francophile friends unhappy. But isn’t this latest effort—by the conservatives, no less—proof that the French simply have wrong the whole relation of religion and public life?